Episode 8 - The Matt Mclean Interview - The Highest Point scorer in National Leagues of Rugby

Matt McLean, the all-time highest point scorer in the National leagues of rugby, joins the podcast. He shares his rugby journey, starting from playing in Wales at a young age and progressing through school and university rugby. Matt highlights the importance of school rugby in Wales and the opportunities it provided, including touring Australia and playing in the World Schools Festival in Dubai. He also discusses the potential of the university system as a talent pool for clubs and suggests exploring alternative development pathways in rugby. Matt talks about his time in Worthing and his rugby career, including his experience with the Welsh Sevens team. He discusses how he ended up in Worthing and his initial reluctance to move there. He also talks about the family-oriented atmosphere of the rugby club and how he enjoyed playing for them. Matt reflects on his standout seasons and how he found success playing at the fly-half position. He also discusses the challenges and trade-offs of pursuing a higher level of rugby and the impact of injuries on his career. Matt reflects on his rugby career, discussing his achievements and the challenges he faced. He talks about his pride in representing England in the Rugby Sevens team and the difficulties of balancing training and work commitments. Matt also shares his transition from player to coach, highlighting the satisfaction he finds in developing players and seeing the team come together. He mentions some talented players he played with, including those who went on to achieve international success, and discusses the potential of players who didn't quite make it due to off-field discipline.

Transcript

Carl (00:11)
Hello and welcome to the Rugby Through the Leagues podcast. This podcast wants to shine a light on rugby that is not shown in the mainstream media. I am Carl. I am an avid rugby fan and regularly injured player. Thanks for joining us on the next instalment of the Rugby Through the Leagues

We have some amazing guests lined up in the coming weeks and we really don't want you to miss out on them. It was another great weekend of rugby. Madrid 7s was on my telly all weekend. It looked unreal. Gutted I couldn't get there this weekend.

Really can't wait to get that on the calendar next year and hopefully get some footage added in for the pod. It was amazing to see both the Spanish men's and women's teams secure their spots for next year's competition as well. Obviously France winning the men's trophy in that Antoine de Pont didn't do too bad either by the looks of it. Asia Rugby men's championship also got underway this weekend starting with

Hong Kong China winning 52 -5 over the UAE.

It was a dominant display, a great game of rugby. UAE had a couple of opportunities to get back into it, just couldn't quite execute a few moves. So we're going to be keeping abreast of that over the coming weeks. On the Sunday, South Korea hosted Malaysia and won 55 -5 to kickstart their tournament.

There was another round of the Asia Rugby Women's Championship with Hong Kong China beating Kazakhstan 22 -0. We will be looking at delving further into Asia rugby over the next few weeks as we have a guest coming on from Rugby India who is able to discuss what the plans for rugby in India are and how the current set up is. So it's an amazing interview, great guest.

and hopefully we can delve a little bit further into Asia rugby in the coming weeks. This week though, we have an interview from Matt McLean, who is the highest point scorer in the national leagues of rugby. an amazing feat for any player. Matt started his rugby journey in Wales.

alongside a star -studded circle of players by the sounds of it.

to Worthing with a mate from university who ended up actually leaving him there after a few months. Matt then fell in love with the South East Coast and Worthing Rugby Club, where he would become a club stalwart. But recently

Liam Perkins to Petersfield to start his coaching journey

Hope everyone enjoys

interview as it could have gone on for hours.

Carl (02:54)
Well, we've got Matt McLean on. I've been badgering him on Instagram for a little while. I think Liam managed to put a good word in to get him across. Matt's going to follow on from, we've got an England captain on a couple of episodes before you, Matt, which is a big feat, but we've now got the...

Matt (03:03)
He he.

Nice.

Carl (03:15)
all -time highest point scorer in the national leagues of rugby. So it's only going up this podcast. It's only getting better So Matt, thank you so much for your time, mate. Really appreciate you coming on.

Matt (03:21)
I

Not at all, mate, not at all. I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I'm not sure the England captain would agree that a national point scorer is a higher accolade than being captain for your country, to be fair, but I'll take it.

Carl (03:36)
So, Matt, great times, great to have you on, mate. As we start off with every guest, for everyone that doesn't know, can you run through with your rugby journey, where it all began, where you've been, what you've seen? Just enlighten everyone else, if you could, please, pal.

Matt (03:50)
Yeah mate, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I got into it. I mean, I'm from South Wales, right? So I think it's harder not to play rugby in Wales if you're from there than it is to play rugby. I mean, it's kind of sort of staking culture there within the sort of national game. So, you know, you had...

Carl (04:10)
Is it true that the sort of nursery schools have got their own teams in Wales? Is it?

Matt (04:15)
I mean, they might have evolved now. I mean, the talent pool might have evolved now. I mean, I started when I was eight, so it wasn't quite nursery schools, but I wouldn't be surprised in their endeavour to sort of improve the side of the talent pool, mate. But, yeah, I mean, I got into it at a relatively young age. I was eight, and sort of funny, really, how it all came about. I mean, I was sport mad when I was a kid, so I played everything, whether it was...

Carl (04:25)
Hehehe

Yeah.

Matt (04:44)
football, tennis, squash. My dad was a squash player. So, you know, I sort of took my hand to quite a lot of sports and my brother who was 11 months younger than me, he wasn't really, we kind of had sort of a different interest. He wasn't really into sports at all. So I think my mum and dad wanted to sort of channel some of his, I guess, you know, energy and what have you into maybe trying to concentrate on some sports. So they tried to encourage him to go to a rugby club, but wanted to exclude me from that kind of thing. They wanted to

Carl (04:48)
Yeah.

Matt (05:13)
They wanted to kind of keep it for him, so he had something to focus on. Me being me, I wouldn't kind of let that happen, so I sort of tagged along anyway and just instantly loved sort of everything about it really. I mean, I was useless to start with. I mean, I reckon it took me about 12 months to learn how to catch and pass the ball, you know, but it sort of didn't deter me. So, you know, I started local rugby club when I was eight years old.

Carl (05:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (05:38)
I think even back then at eight it was Tag rugby through to about 10. I mean, they've changed the age grades now in terms of when they start contact. My boys just turned eight and he's going into contact already. So yeah, so started when I was eight years old, played a lot of my sort of... Well, yeah, so this is gonna be quite difficult I imagine for a lot of listeners who don't speak Welsh. So the club name was Crick.

Carl (05:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

What club was that at, Matt? Where did you start?

Matt (06:07)
So it was a Welsh speaking centric rugby club. So Cric stands for Club Rugby, Ye Ynty Cymru Cyddi. So not that that means a huge amount to the English speakers. Yeah. But it was effectively a rugby club for...

Carl (06:12)
Okay.

exactly what I was about to say, Matt, to be honest. Yeah, I could be...

Matt (06:30)
the kids that went to a Welsh speaking school, right? We had a couple of English or non -Welsh speakers involved in it as well. I was there for probably maybe a couple of years and then from about, I reckon, 10, a mate of mine, me and a mate of mine, was playing for that club. We moved over to another club called Lander Frogby Club and I played there, I played there, Club Frogby, so it was probably about 15, I reckon, yeah, under sort of 15s, under 16s.

Carl (06:51)
Okay.

Matt (07:00)
And actually that side was, I mean, one of the most successful sort of youth club sides that I've ever sort of, well, one, obviously been involved in, but two, have ever kind of been aware of in terms of, you know, other successes that other clubs have had or not had, you know, growing up. And even now when I look across sort of the youth teams that are there, you don't sort of hear of sides that have that amount of success. I mean, we had some real, real sort of top youth talent in that side.

Carl (07:08)
Mmm.

Yep.

Matt (07:27)
One of the standout players that we had in that team was Chris Chekaj obviously capped for Wales several years ago before the unfortunately retired quite early due to that sort of femur injury he picked up against Australia. But you know, I reckon about 80 % of our team at that club were representative rugby players. The problem we had though was that because the side was so steeped in talent, we didn't have a huge...

Carl (07:32)
Yep.

Yep.

Matt (07:55)
depth to the squad because lots of players didn't want to come and play because nobody could get in the team. So we ran out most Sundays with a bare 16 -17 players. Obviously the 16 -17 players we had were really, really good, but if anybody picked up any injuries or there was just sort of random bits of unavailability, we'd struggle on those sorts of weekends.

Carl (07:56)
Nah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, I bet there'll be clubs hoping you guys were dropping out each bit like that. Right, that's it, one of them's been called away, that's it, let's take advantage of it.

Matt (08:20)
 I mean, the issue was, like I said, most of the boys ended up playing representative rugby right throughout the age groups. Lots of them were kind of like mainstays in some of the age group rugby throughout the sort of years to come up to sort of under 20s, under 21s. You know, obviously, Chris Czekaj was probably the standout one that went on and kind of made it big time from that group of lads.

But there was a lot of honours and representative honours from a lot of the players in that particular team. So that was obviously really good, being able to play in an environment where you're surrounded by the best talent that Cardiff has to offer. But then obviously when you go out and play some of your tournaments against some of the other South Walyan clubs and what have you, you'd be impitted against some of the other best. And we were a bit too much competition for them as well at the time. So that was really good.

Carl (09:01)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, nice.

Matt (09:19)
My club rugby was sort of, sort of got cut, not cut short, but a lot of it was driven through the schools back in Wales. So, you know, so it seems to be sort of slightly different here to a degree. I mean, it's a huge emphasis. When I say here, I mean, in England, I live in South East England now, but there's a huge emphasis on, you know, club rugby here, not over school rugby, but it sort of holds itself in kind of equal measure, whereas back home, particularly when I was growing up.

Carl (09:28)
Okay.

Matt (09:48)
School rugby was kind of the priority really. I was fortunate enough, I went to a high school that was sort of steeped in heritage or traditional rugby heritage. We had some really, really good influential school rugby teachers there that had had a lot of experience in the game over the years. And for me, that's where a huge amount of influence came on me in terms of, I guess,

Carl (09:53)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (10:18)
my development as a player, how that probably kind of fed into the way I play or the way I see the game being played, both as a player and a coach. So it had a huge, huge sort of influence on me. You know, the school provided a lot of opportunity for players, one, to play, but also lifetime experiences in terms of where and how you play your rugby. I mean, my school toured when I was there, we went to...

Carl (10:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (10:44)
We toured Australia, we played out in Dubai in the World Schools competition. We'd played multiple times across Europe, all over the country in terms of the UK, in terms of Sevens tournaments and what have you. So we were really sort of fortunate to be given those opportunities to play a lot of good rugby.

Carl (10:49)
Wow.

That's unreal, that is, that's hell. Imagine that, a kid from Portsmouth area who struggled to get down a swanich and then the schools end up... That's impossible to do, let alone take a rugby team across to Australia and stuff. That must have been one hell of an experience as well. Obviously we'll come onto that a little bit later on, but I'm guessing you probably come across some players that probably went on in the game over there, is that sort of fair to say?

Matt (11:13)
Hahaha

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I would have been about 16, probably about 16, 17 at the time. So any players that may have done, I mean, obviously, Australia is a huge country, right? So, you know, we played five or six games out there where we played a Victoria school side. We travelled all around the place. I can't remember the names of the schools that we played. St Peter's College, St Peter's Lutheran College.

Carl (11:40)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (11:55)
At the time, you could obviously see they had some really, really talented players. I mean, I was fortunate that I went to a school in a year group where we had some really talented players as well. So again, we were kind of sort of grown up being in these sort of really highly competitive teams that were, thankfully, you know, steeped with a lot of natural talent and ability, which sort of suited me because I don't particularly like losing all that often. So...

Carl (12:04)
Yeah.

Yep.

No, no, I see, it's perfect, innit?

Matt (12:24)
But I mean, we may well have played against some players who perhaps went on and did some bits throughout the Australian rugby circuit. I just wouldn't be aware of them. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, in terms of experiences, it was unbelievable. I mean, you kind of don't really realise at the time how kind of fortunate you are as a sort of 16, 17 year old to be given the opportunity to go out and play the sport that you love.

Carl (12:31)
Yeah. Aware of them.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Matt (12:49)
in a country that's kind of highly sought after in terms of people wanting to travel and visit. But also with your best mates that you've grown up through school with. So not only was obviously the rugby superb, but just the experience itself in terms of being able to travel and tour with the boys at that sort of age was phenomenal. So I'll always be grateful and appreciative for the...

Carl (12:55)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

Matt (13:16)
towards a school for those opportunities that we were given. So, yeah, it was unbelievable.

Carl (13:18)
Yeah.

So with the Dubai one as well, you mentioned the World Schools competition. When would that have been? What sort of time?

Matt (13:29)
Yeah, so that would have been sort of my college year, I guess, or sixth form, my second year of sixth form. So 18, probably about 18 I was. And I think, I'm not sure how many times, if that was kind of like the first version of its, you know, the World Schools Festival, or if it had been something that kind of happened for several years, and it was just kind of an annual thing really. But we were invited as kind of one of the top schools in Wales to go and represent the

Carl (13:39)
Bye.

Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Matt (13:58)
represent Wales in this World Schools Festival. We played against St Mary's College from Ireland, Rotorua from across New Zealand. We kind of all pulled off and all the rest of it. It was superb. It was a completely different experience in terms of anything else that we'd done. At that point, we're talking 20 years ago, right? Dubai was a very different place then to what it probably is now.

Carl (14:07)
Yeah? Wow.

Yep.

That was just on the start, was it? Sort of the development piece of Dubai. So it was probably nowhere. It was like a shell of what it was now sort of thing. Yeah.

Matt (14:28)
Yeah, more cranes and buildings, I think, back then. But also the conditions were just sort of, for us, unheard of. We were having to play 7, 8pm in the evening. I think the festival, if I remember right, was May time. So it was quite a hot, hot time of the year over in Dubai. And because of the heat, we couldn't play till 7, 8pm in the evening, which was a bit...

Carl (14:42)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Matt (14:58)
weird because we hadn't really sort of done that stuff you know normally over here so but

Carl (15:02)
and coming from Wales as well and seeing sunshine again. That's probably a little disconcerting as well.

Matt (15:05)
What was the most memorable moment for you?

Carl (15:15)
Yeah.

Ha ha.

Matt (15:29)
and played with through school. So yeah, it was, you know, there's not much that can kind of better that really, to be honest.

Carl (15:30)
Yeah, that's a problem.

So obviously schools, sounds like you had one hell of a time. What was the journey after the school period ended? Where was it next? Where did it take you on from there?

Matt (15:46)
Yeah, so I mean, whilst I was in sixth form, if you like, my second year of sixth form, I got picked up or selected to play for Wales age grade stuff. So I played Wales 18s. And again, that was all kind of driven driven through the school format, you know. So back in Wales, you kind of had like the first team at any age group, which was your your Wales schools team. And it's kind of Wales youth, which was then selected via the clubs, which is kind of like the off cuts of people who hadn't made it into the school set. It's all a bit weird.

Carl (15:58)
No. Yep.

Right, yeah.

Matt (16:15)
It made sense at the time, but looking back now it's kind of like it was a little bit sort of weird. So I was able to do that and it's funny you mentioned about playing against players out in Australia that must have gone on to make it. And there is one really good example of a player I played against when I was playing for Wales 18 against Ireland. Now, obviously Rob Carney turned out for Ireland.

Carl (16:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Not a bad player, he did alright, didn't he?

Matt (16:42)
At 15. And at the time, you see Rob Kearney on the team, he was 15, I'm playing at 13, right? You kind of don't think much of it because you're like, well, who's this guy? He obviously then went on to become a kind of a world superstar in terms of the sort of senior format. But for that day, I mean, I got nowhere near him, mate. I mean, the 13 channel may as well not have had anybody in it. He was that good.

Carl (16:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

One of them that could find space in a phone box is he just literally just glided past everything.

Matt (17:09)
Yeah, and obviously he was a big lad at the time as well still. So, you know, if you got, if you did get anywhere near him, his physical attributes were just too good to kind of halt him. And I just remember him sort of ghosting out, thinking, I can't cover all this space. I mean, it was one of those I'm thinking, do I point the finger at the winger for not jamming in? But the defensive policy at the time was up and out. So I thought, well, it's definitely my channel. I just can't, couldn't get to him. He was just too good. And then you kind of look.

Carl (17:30)
Yeah.

Just can't touch him, that's it.

Matt (17:38)
several years later and kind of where he was at and what he was doing in the game. You could sort of think, well, you know, I don't feel so bad now. I mean, the bloke was obviously exceptional. So, but you know, they were also good times as well in terms of, you know, playing with particular players of a certain level. And a lot of them have gone on to make it sort of, you know, top, top level. So, yeah, they're really good times. Post that, then I went to uni.

Carl (17:44)
Nah.

Matt (18:07)
I went over and studied sport and exercise science. I stayed fairly local to be honest. I was over at Cardiff Met.

Carl (18:12)
Okay, yeah, yeah. They've got quite a good rugby system there, haven't they? That's where Alex Donbrant went and stuff, who's part of that system, was he? Yeah. okay. Yeah.

Matt (18:21)
That's right, yeah, that's right. And also Alex Cuthbert, I think, was a product of that over the course of time. But it was really interesting, I was thinking about this fairly recently actually. So, you know, it was a long time when I was at uni and things have evolved and changed and the landscape has changed. Social media is obviously far more prevalent now than it kind of ever was then. Live streaming of games and what have you. So I think the uni system now has become a really big shop window for clubs to have a look and identify.

talent that are kind of off radar really, because obviously you've got the academy setups where some of the kids and lads get picked up early doors and they're being developed internally and evolved and what have you, but then also you've got the university sort of landscape now where back in my day we didn't have live streaming, we didn't have social media to kind of profile players and games and what have you. So actually there was a lot of talent that I...

Carl (18:53)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (19:16)
played with and against at university that probably had the capability to kick on and make it, just never really got put in that shop window to kind of be able to thrive or get picked up, you know. So, but obviously as times evolve that's happened. But again, you know, for me, it was one of those environments where I had a really, really good rugby coach. I learned a lot as a player. I developed loads and loads and loads.

Carl (19:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (19:44)
Chris Davie, it was. I told him he was one of the best coaches I've had throughout my entire career. He was so detail -orientated. But in the moment, I find a lot of coaches need time to reflect on games, watch some video footage back and then give you the feedback. He seemed to be able to see everything on a pitch for the entire 80 minutes for every player. There was no hiding place.

Carl (19:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like he was hovering over the top sort of thing. You could sort of see everything, every movement, and he was able to just give a judgment. You should have done this, this, or this. They're the best, aren't they? When you can find a coach that's aware of the game for every position, they're worth their weight in gold, 100%.

Matt (20:19)
Yeah, it was a old one, yeah, it was a old -

Yeah, yeah. He was often brought in to sort of run ad hoc sessions with the Wales senior team. And he was at the time when it was Wales under 21s, he was the Wales under 21s head coach for several seasons when they threw their kind of their most successful period. So what I knew I had at university was a real top level coach who was going to benefit me as an individual in terms of my player development.

Carl (20:35)
wow, okay.

Mm -hmm.

Matt (20:55)
So for me, I think it was a perfect place to apply your trade and improve as a player and learn loads. And I think to this date, I learned so much about how to, the perspective you have on the game, what kind of thing, what type of things would you ask yourself as a player? You'd often ask me, well, why did you do that? And I wouldn't have given it a second thought if somebody wasn't there to challenge my decision -making. And you get those bits of insight and all of a sudden you kind of...

Carl (21:16)
Yeah.

Matt (21:23)
you think about it as you go into as you get old and you get a bit more mature and you go well actually why would I do that?

Carl (21:29)
Yeah, yeah, no, that's brilliant. So as you said, like with the whole university system, it does make you wonder why that's being used as a backup for the missed academy players. It's a bit of a theme on the pod now. We talk about the players that have gone by the wayside because they're either not part of an academy system. As you mentioned, some of the university players are being picked up now. Some of them have possibly been missed beforehand as well.

Matt (21:32)
Yeah.

Carl (21:59)
But there's none of, there's not another string to that. They're kind of very channeled at this, this or this at the minute. They haven't quite gone far enough in my opinion. Do you agree with that?

Matt (22:09)
Yeah, I mean, I think obviously it's got better over time. I think, particularly with rugby, it's difficult. I mean, you often compare rugby to football and kind of how some of the development pathways kind of look there. And I think obviously football is really ruthless. You know, kids are getting let go at nine, 10, 11 years of age, right? And you kind of think, well, some rugby players don't even start the game until they're maybe sort of mid -teens, you know.

Carl (22:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (22:36)
don't really find it and some and people bloom and evolve at a different stage of their careers. I mean, it's such a it's such a physical orientated sport that people develop physically at different stages at different times in their lives and stuff. So I think I think like you say, you hear a lot more of these sort of stories now around players who weren't associated with academies now being picked up through the university system. I mean, it was very rare when.

Carl (22:40)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Matt (23:04)
when I was there, there was one or two that I played with that did get an opportunity, but they had to work really hard for it and they were sort of few and far between. But I think it's definitely got better.

Carl (23:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just not as quick as a lot of things. There's probably a lot more players that are falling by the wayside through the system, just because rugby seems to be a little bit slower at taking on bits. And I think it's all down to funding. It's down to the accessibility. I think, as you said, social media helps put a lot of players in the spotlight. A lot of people have got their own footage. They've got their own rugby CV now that they can...

highlight their best bits, shall we say, rather than all the other bits, and then when they actually turn up for a trial, it's like somebody's picked those highlights as your best option. Yeah, that's it.

Matt (23:42)
Yeah.

Everyone's got the highlights, haven't they? I think, well, I think, you know, if you look at the American model with American football, you know, we've got the combine and things like that. I think, you know, I know it's very sort of data orientated, very sort of physically, you know, testing orientated and things like that. But I think there's some potential sort of correlation there between or relevancy in terms of what they do and, you know, how can that be applied to other sports to give people an additional shot window to kind of

Proof but you know you go back to talk about the funding of the game Actually, is there an opportunity to place a bit more emphasis on players who were unassociated with academies and clubs because ultimately, you know? commercially speaking if you know clubs are dealing with players who were already kind of in the game and they want to sort of draw in talent and recruit players from other clubs that were already Tied in you know contracts are usually higher in terms of what they're paying for these players because they've already established players, but actually there's a lot of times where

Carl (24:43)
Yeah.

Matt (24:52)
university players or older college players potentially have the same level of ability or capability that would be a far cheaper option. They just haven't been uncovered if that makes sense. So, yeah.

Carl (25:02)
 a central contract, like a draft system, like they do in the NFL, there's that player, pool and they can say, well, actually, I'm going to bring him on a sort of a training contract, the same as what Lewis Rees -Zammit over on a minute, and if he gets to the end of it and they don't want to offer him a contract, he's still got a year or two covered on a lesser salary, but if they do pick him up, he's tied in for three years. And there's ways that rugby's potentially got to look outside the box and use.

Matt (25:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Carl (25:31)
what works in other sports. I just don't think we look outside the box in a lot of places and that's quite a sad fact of rugby at times.

Matt (25:39)
Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. You know, but, you know, from from, you know, quite successful going back to sort of the university rugby that I played, I mean, you know, a really successful side then as well. I mean, we we reached, you know, it's called the the Bucks competition now. But back then it was called the.

Carl (25:48)
Yep.

Matt (26:01)
the BUSA rugby competition. So we got to the final one year. I think, you know, Hartbury was our nemesis actually. In my first year at uni, we lost to them and they knocked us out in the quarterfinals. My second year at uni, they beat us in the final at Twickenham. And then in my third year, they beat us in the semi -final.

Carl (26:15)
But...

Matt (26:24)
18 -17 so you know they were kind of yeah they were they were they were our Achilles heel Hartbury I mean we had a couple of wins against them as well but in the pool stages but when it came to the sort of the finals and the knockouts they usually had they usually had the best of us only very marginally but but but obviously again they were great experiences. I then left left left Cardiff Met went and played over in the championship for a brief period of time with Manchester Rugby Club at the time.

Carl (26:26)
no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, yep.

Matt (26:51)
So it wasn't called the championship back then, that's kind of how old I am now these days. It was still referred to, I think, as National One. They'd sort of recently been promoted from that one into the championship. But the wheels fell off up there after about six months, really. I mean, it was all, obviously, at that level, you're relying heavily on sponsors putting a huge amount of money into the club. And I think that the main sponsor, the money man, pulled out and all of a sudden you had sort of...

Carl (26:58)
Yeah.

Bye.

Yep.

Matt (27:18)
I'd come from outside of the area to play for the club up north, so it wasn't worth my while hanging about in an unfamiliar place. So I went back home from there, played in the Welsh Premiership for a bit at Newport, and then found myself over on the South East coast at Worthing. And bizarrely how that came about really was one of my best mates who I grew up with, he was living this way.

Carl (27:27)
Yeah.

Nice.

Matt (27:47)
with, you know, you've met a girl at university, moved, she lived over just outside of Worthing, he moved, but he moved on his own, but he was a really social, he was a really social butterfly of a person, right, and he, he somehow managed, and he was really good at this, he somehow managed to convince me to move to West Sussex, and it, yeah, yeah.

Carl (27:53)
Yeah.

Right.

I was going to say how you ever ended up near Worthing is going to be a story in itself to be honest.

Matt (28:11)
Well, this is it, right? So he convinced me to kind of move over. I mean, I don't know how I sort of fell for it really. He was like, you know, he sold me the dream. And, you know, he said, you know, you come and live with us. Her dad had a big six, seven bedroom house, which ironically, Katie Price subsequently bought. So that's the house she lives in now. So it's a bit of a tedious link there for you. But yeah, so I sort of stayed there for a bit.

Carl (28:21)
Yeah.

Right. Yeah.

Matt (28:40)
After about three months and I thought I quite like it he decided to tell me that the pair of them were gonna move back to Cardiff right so I thought well You've got me over here and left me here. So I'm but I'd sort of started to get settled I quite enjoyed To a degree the tranquillity of the southeast coast. It was it's quite nice The weather was was as you mentioned a bit earlier back in Wales. It's far better. It definitely rained far less over there and

Carl (28:48)
Nice.

Only thing with Worthing though, you probably turned up and you thought you turned up to God's waiting room, didn't you? There's a lot of people that literally probably dropped down in the street on a common occasion over there. It's very tranquil because most of them are nearly dead. That's the problem with Worthing, but beautiful place, beautiful place.

Matt (29:10)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's becoming a little bit more vibrant now. I mean, usually when people ask us, they say, well, I live just outside Brighton because people kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little bit more sort of multicultural and diverse and a little bit more hip. So, you know, things are happening there. So.

Carl (29:26)
Is it?

There we go, yeah that's what, yeah.

Matt (29:39)
Yeah, I mean, I just sort of settled with it. I ended up, you know, enjoying it. What I found was that the club was a sort of a very sort of family orientated club. It was it was, you know, it was huge. It's a huge emphasis in terms of minis and junior rugby. You sort of went down to the rugby club on a Sunday. There was a lot of hundreds and hundreds of kids and parents sort of, you know, getting getting their kids into the rugby system or what have you.

Carl (30:00)
Yeah.

Matt (30:05)
You know, for me on a Saturday, it was a very well supported club. You know, lots of people turn up and watch four or five, 600 roughly per week, you know, it was a good atmosphere. And I think the way that we sort of tried to play the game was always kind of expansive and positive and it kind of suited my values really in terms of how the game should be played, how you kind of want to play, it's enjoyable. So I found myself sort of...

Carl (30:10)
Yep.

Yeah, it's decent.

Matt (30:34)
settling really so despite the fact that he convinced me to come over and then went back himself I sort of stayed and sort of sawed it through and just sort of settled really.

Carl (30:42)
Nice. Yeah, fair, well, fair enough. On your Wikipedia, it does also say that you had a little dabble at bath. Is that true or?

Matt (30:51)
 Yeah. So, yeah, so it was we'd my school team at sixth form, we played against Colston's and obviously Colston's is a huge rugby school in sort of the Bristol Bath area. And shortly, we I think we won the game fairly comprehensively. They must have had a couple of players missing because, you know, some of them, some of the boys they had on their books are Tom Varndell Ryan Davis.

Carl (31:05)
Yep. Yep.

Matt (31:18)
Both of those weren't playing in that particular game. So yeah, off the back of that, I got picked up by, got a letter from a scout or a phone call from a scout that was working at Bath and asked if I wanted to go over. There was me and three other lads that got invited to go over and trial for Bath. And two out of the four of us made it through and ended up playing a season for Bath and the 17s Academy it was at the time. So...

Carl (31:21)
Yeah.

Nice.

Matt (31:46)
Yeah, one season I was back over in Cardiff set up, Cardiff Blues Academy after that, alongside the Wales under 18s thing before moving on to university. So yeah, had a quick season with Bath and then went back.

Carl (31:52)
Yeah.

Fair enough. So the Welsh system as well then, I had a quick Si Pickett was on the other week. He sort of, we overlooked on how the Welsh rugby system is currently. He said that obviously the WIU possibly sort of become disconnected with the other parts of the league. When you were part of the Welsh Premier League and stuff, was that just before the sort of the URC and the provinces and stuff like that, was that?

kind of where it was then.

Matt (32:33)
Yeah, I think it's evolved quite a bit over time. It's changed quite a bit. So when I was about, I must have been about 15, 16 maybe, that's when the provinces first kind of, the regions as they called it back then, first kind of come to fruition. Because I think historically Club Rugby in Wales was really well supported. You had lots of rivalries.

Carl (32:46)
Yep.

Matt (32:59)
steeped in tradition throughout the game there. So, you know, Yucardia, Swansea, Newport, Pont de Prés, etc. And all of a sudden the kind of the regions came into force with an amalgamation of all of these kind of sub -premises or sub -towns and cities really, if you like. I think there was a sort of a split in...

Carl (33:14)
Yeah.

Matt (33:26)
opinion in terms of how that would look and how it should be supported. You kind of catch a die -hard fans of their club, you know, their club teams that just resented the thought or the idea of a regional rugby. But, you know, I think it changed again. We lost the region fairly early. I think the Celtic Warriors was the first region to kind of go. So they started with five and then went to four. You know, and the regions have sort of been under pressure.

Carl (33:30)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (33:55)
and the pressure since it wasn't quite the URC back then. It hadn't kind of emerged. I mean, the South African teams are also heavily involved in it now, which, you know, sort of struggle to understand the geography of the league really, don't you sometimes? I mean, it's a bit bizarre, but yeah, it's... You didn't quite feel it at the time though, in terms of sort of that disconnect, you know. I think, you know, particularly myself,

Carl (33:59)
No.

Yeah.

Right.

Matt (34:25)
as a young player, you kind of didn't really worry yourself too much about, you know, the politics of it all. I was sort of probably a bit too young and I used to kind of really be aware of what was going on. I just wanted to play rugby and try and be as competitive as I could. But I think over the years, I think the success of obviously the national team has kind of papered over some of the cracks that may sit within the structure across the regions. You know, and obviously now knee deep in trying to rectify.

Carl (34:29)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (34:54)
rectify some of that really.

Carl (34:56)
I think it's also affecting the player pool for the national team as well because the money's not there, a lot of them are going to go abroad and is there that conveyor belt of players coming up through the system to fill that gap underneath and if the clubs underneath the regions don't feel supported, it's the same as most parts of rugby. A lot of it's down to money at the minute and just doesn't seem to be coming into a lot of places.

Matt (35:11)
Yeah.

Well, it seems to me more. Well, yeah, I think, you know, obviously sports careers are short, right? And players, if they've got, you know, ability and potential and the carrots being dangled elsewhere. Yes. Well, you know, and obviously you've got this sort of ruling really in terms of how many minimum amount of caps to be selected. If you've not, if you've already been capped and all the rest of it to be able to play for your country. And it's all, it's putting players in a really difficult situation between deciding, okay, well, do you do something that's commercially beneficial by you and your family over the long term?

Carl (35:22)
apart from France and America and that really.

Yes.

Yeah.

Matt (35:52)
Which comes at a complete detriment to probably what your heart says in terms of your passion and your desire to play rugby for your country. And I think it's put a lot of players in a really difficult spot. Hence why year after year you're seeing, you hear about more and more players who are emerging as top talent that are eligible to play for Wales, but they're playing their rugby across the...

Carl (35:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (36:20)
sort of premiership teams in England really so they've been brought through through a different system so you know I think they're gonna have to try and recover it somehow I'm not sure what the solutions or the answers are to be fair.

Carl (36:29)
I think they've tried tweaking it, it's not 60 caps anymore. I think they've dropped it to like 20 caps or something, but with a very young, undeveloped national side, that's still quite difficult to correct at the minute with the way it is. So it's an interesting thing. So obviously, Worthing, you had a phenomenal career there, obviously. But some serious points on the board, as we mentioned earlier.

Matt (36:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, I agree.

Okay.

Carl (36:58)
What was the standout season for you at Worthing? What was the one that you put your hat on and that was the season that you thought, I've really had one hell of a barnstormer here? Or did you think you'd done exceptionally well every season? I know it's not trying to blow your own trumpet, but it's a team game and stuff, but.

Matt (37:14)
No... Yeah, no, no, no, no, this...

This, you have ups and downs, right? Both in a isolated season and across a number of seasons really. So, there were some really difficult seasons. Ironically, the season that was probably the worst for me in terms of, I picked up a really bad ankle and leg injury, which kept me out for about 16, 17 months. That season, the team went on to...

Carl (37:27)
Yeah.

Matt (37:44)
get promoted, win the league and get promoted, or come second in the league and get promoted into Nat 1, ironically. And I missed the majority of the Nat 2 season and then again the majority, caught the tail end of the Nat 1 season. So they were difficult seasons. There were obviously other times where you sort of dip in and out of form. Really bizarrely though, I think some of my best rugby came post my injury. I mean, I picked up my injury when I was about 26. I got back to playing when I was...

about 28, late 27, 28. I actually reckon I probably played some of my best rugby in my career. Once I hit 30, you know, 31, 32, 33. I think, you know, I probably just matured quite a lot as a player. I saw the game in a different way. I was able to read the game. I think I've always been quite a good reader of the game, but I just became far more efficient and smart in terms of how to apply.

Carl (38:16)
Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

Matt (38:41)
my energy and efforts across the pitch rather than just trying to be gung -ho all the time for 80 minutes and trying to be everywhere all the time when I was a little bit younger. I can't remember what particular season it was, but I've always played most of my rugby at senior level in the back three, full back in particular. There were two or three seasons where we were running short of 10 options.

Carl (39:00)
Yeah.

Okay.

Matt (39:11)
You know, we had one particular season where we looked as though we might sort of face the chop and get relegated. We didn't really have a solution at 10. So I sort of stepped in, really enjoyed it. And I think, you know, one of the sort of principles I hold quite highly in terms of how the game should be played is, and it's how I was taught to play right through school and universities. Keep all of the ball. Don't kick it away. Now, I know, obviously, there's times for a percentage style game and you've got to play a bit more pragmatically, but...

Carl (39:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Matt (39:41)
You know, I think beneath the top level, you can kind of get away with if you've got good players with good individual ability around the park that are prepared to take people on and they've got the ability to beat their defenders one on one. Why kick, why kick territory? Why kick possession away, right? So, you know, once I sort of slotted into 10, I kind of, I kind of took on this responsibility to kind of dictate the way the team were going to play. And the way I played the game was keep the ball and attack space.

Carl (39:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (40:09)
And that's kind of what we did. We just became, I think, a far bigger threat in terms of our attacking play. We probably sometimes put ourselves under a bit of pressure because we wanted us to play from deep when perhaps just clearing the lines would have been a better option. But I think we just found that we enjoyed it far more that way. And I think, you know, the two or three seasons I had when I was at 10, I think what I was able to do was I brought some of the some of the sort of key physical attributes I had in terms of pace and footwork from my fallback.

Carl (40:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (40:38)
position into the midfield where they probably weren't quite so elusive. So it gave me a little bit more of a confidence boost because I felt like I was now running at space and players that I knew probably didn't have quite as much ability in terms of my pick. Whereas as I was getting older in the fullback position, you could sense that actually you're getting these young 20 -year -old lads appearing on the wing on the opposition.

Carl (40:39)
Yeah. Nice.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (41:02)
You know, it takes me half an hour to warm up. These guys are just chucking their boots on and they can run under a mile an hour without even sort of mobilizing and activating. I thought I just can't do that anymore. So yeah, there was a good few seasons. I think that kind of helped propel. We talk about the point scoring record. That kind of helped propel, you know, my focus on that really. I started to bizarrely score more tries from the 10 position just by being able to kind of put the ball into space. We had a couple of good outside backs. I just cheat lined.

Carl (41:10)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (41:32)
like a nine would do from a breakdown. And I'd take the inside pass for most of it. A lot of the tries just came from support play. I think that's what I mean by just being a bit more efficient, rather than trying to do lots of work as an individual on my own, trying to beat lots of players individually. I'd move the ball into space, let someone else do the hard work and beat all the players. I'll just take the easy ball on the inside for the score under the sticks, which I was able to just nudge over because I was the kicker. So.

Carl (41:37)
Nice.

Yeah.

Nudge over, yeah.

Matt (42:00)
It kind of went hand in hand sometimes.

Carl (42:01)
So was those two, three seasons after your injury as well, or was they just after as well, were they?

Matt (42:07)
Yeah, they were after so I think for a couple of, I'd say for about a season and a bit I probably struggled to really not find form but really get confidence in back into my playing ability. Yeah.

Carl (42:25)
trust your body again and stuff like that. You probably sort of second guessed whether your leg was gonna fall apart every time and stuff like that, yeah.

Matt (42:32)
Exactly, because I also had, you know, while I went through the injury process, you know, I had the surgeon sort of say to me, you know, you might want to think about playing another sport, you know, which was basically their way of saying, you should stop playing because it's not that it's not that not that good an idea. So but but I was, you know, I've always been quite resilient. I was quite determined to kind of prove that statement wrong. But I think, you know, deep rooted inside of me was this sort of constant not.

Carl (42:44)
Yeah.

Matt (42:59)
fear, but this lack of confidence of, am I able to do it? And it was only, eventually as I played more, but it just took a lot longer than I expected. I think it probably, probably about a season and a bit where then all of a sudden I found some form and I've kind of not looked back on it really. I've sort of trained harder than I've ever trained before, trained smarter, trained better. And it's allowed me to kind of elongate my career, if you like, at that sort of level.

Carl (43:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (43:29)
I was quite effective at what I did when I was able to find that fall in terms of scoring tries and kicking points and what have you. I've been able to move around the park quite efficiently again.

Carl (43:41)
Nice. So obviously, it was roughly 2012 when you done your leg, because that was roughly the season when it, yeah. So obviously, as you said, you sort of missed out on the NAT1 season. Do you think you would have reached the pinnacle of your game and possibly been picked up and gone further up through the leagues? Or could you see that you could have potentially been able to support Worthing and they've got there to continued up? Is that something that...

Matt (43:47)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Carl (44:10)
 it's sort of looking outside the bubble, but do you think you could have carried on? You could have put yourself in a window or Worthing could have carried on with yourself a bit further up or at least held that NAT one season together because it was probably a big shock to some of the system as well, probably within the team.

Matt (44:13)
Yeah.

Well, I think...

Yeah, I think, I mean, from an individual perspective, I think, you know, my motivations by that point, what am I, 28, 27, 28, my motivations to probably play at a higher level. So I wanted to play at a higher level, but I didn't really want to be leaving clubs to chase a higher level of rugby. You know, bearing in mind, I'd come from, you know, the championship environment and I played over in the Wales Premiership.

Carl (44:48)
Okay. Yeah.

Matt (44:59)
I'd sort of settled and you get to a point, I guess, as a semi -pro player where you kind of go, okay, well, what's the trade off, right? So, yeah, the ambitions to play as high as you can are kind of always there. But as you get a bit older and you acquire these sort of responsibilities outside of rugby, you get married, family, house, kids, all the rest of it, right? You kind of go, you know, work. You kind of go, okay, well, the more you chase it,

Carl (45:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (45:29)
And if you get it right, it has to be a trade off somewhere else. And I think for me, I got to a point where I just balanced it all off and thought, yeah, want to play and challenge myself as much as I can, but not to the detriment or the expense of all of or some of this, you know.

Carl (45:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, so you'd have obviously loved to have been out a part of that season and continued that journey with Worthing or at least put that would have been your progression. You wouldn't have wanted to call and said, go up route and you've got to go up here. That would have been the Worthing progression would have been the critical piece.

Matt (45:55)
I think.

Well, I did have a couple of calls from a variety of clubs over the course of time, you know, championship level, NAT one level, you know, prosperous, Nat two teams that were really ambitious and wanted to kick on. And that probably happened over the course of sort of six, seven years, either side of the injury as well. So, you know, the opportunity was always there. It was just a case of me sort of saying, well, actually, it's not right for me anymore at this stage of my career or my life because of all of these sorts of things. Plus the fact that I really enjoyed.

Carl (46:08)
Okay.

Yep.

Yeah.

Matt (46:34)
playing the rugby, I was playing where I was playing. And so you're right, the ideal would have been, how can I contribute to the success of Worthing's Rugby Club, climb up the ladder, if you like. And unfortunately, we weren't able to kind of survive at NAT one level. Or be it wasn't, the lads weren't far off. I think the issue we had was squad depth. And I think, could I have influenced a different outcome?

Carl (46:36)
Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah. Right.

Matt (47:02)
Possibly not, I think the depth issue was more of a forward -orientated thing. We just weren't able to cope with the level of physicality and size and power that other teams brought week after week after week. I'll be attacking... Well, actually, no, no, no, so that year, to be fair, that year, Perky, Liam, he was selected as the National 1s, as the eighth for the National 1s team of the year that year. Obviously, yeah, so he was exceptional.

Carl (47:06)
Bye.

Is that you basically blaming Liam? Was it Liam's fault?

wow.

Matt (47:31)
And bearing in mind, he would have had to have worked off the back of a scrum that was going backwards most weeks. And he's one of the best back row players on number eight that I've seen deal with a struggling scrum at the base of the scrum, in terms of being able to recover the ball and put the side on the front foot, or at least on par again. You know what I mean? He sort of reached the gate like, yeah.

Carl (47:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

on the front foot. Yeah. Yeah. Back on the gain line rather than going backwards, yeah.

Matt (47:59)
Yeah, and so he was fully deserving of his inclusion in that team of the year for that particular season. But I think just collectively, we didn't have the depth or the size to be able to cope with that. And we lost so many games, I think we had one of the highest amounts of bonus points, whether that be four tries or losing by seven. So we were competitive, but we were on the wrong side of the scoreline just narrowly on too many occasions, really. And ultimately, that was kind of it.

Carl (48:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Fair play. So another bit of your Wikipedia, mate. I know I've been doing a little bit of research. You were in and around the Welsh Sevens team as well, is that correct? Where did that take you?

Matt (48:33)
Hey.

Yeah, so again, it was when I talk about sort of playing some of the best rugby after, you know, when I hit 30, you know, a lot of this came after the injury, right? So the Wales 7 thing, it was a funny one because for me, I was far more geared and motivated. It was one of my ambitions of mine, you know, right through sort of, I guess, my university years and things like that to try and break into that Wales 7 setup.

Carl (48:52)
Okay.

Okay.

Matt (49:10)
And when I was 20, I think it was my third year at uni, I was on the fringes of breaking into it. I was being called up to play for Samurai Sevens, as they were known at the time. They've rebranded to Shogun now. So I started to play in some key tournaments for them, including the Amsterdam Sevens, where we had a really strong side there. So I could tell I was making progress in terms of trying to achieve that goal.

Carl (49:23)
Okay.

Matt (49:40)
And there was a tournament that was due to play in for Cardiff Met in Wales, so I can't remember what it was, where I'd been given the heads up that I was being scouted for the Wales Sevens, to be drafted into the Wales Sevens training squad off the back of that tournament, right? So, you know, I was prepared, I was back in my own ability and, you know, I had plenty of confidence. I knew I was capable of being able to play at that level on the seven circuit, really. It was just...

Carl (49:55)
well.

Matt (50:10)
you know, getting the opportunity in the shop window to kind of get picked up. And obviously I'd made the right noises or impressions on the right people over the course of time through various tournaments. But unfortunately got injured just before that tournament and played through the injury. But obviously my performance on the day because of the injury just wasn't, you know, probably wasn't up to scratch and therefore it kind of didn't materialize. And really out of the blue, you know, after the injury, I thought I'll do a summer of sevens.

Carl (50:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (50:38)
to kind of give myself some of that game time again and get fit and get the body going on the circuit. Less physical, probably more demanding in terms of the cardio and the running, but you're not taking so many physical hits and what have you. So, and again, talk about how do people make it and get picked up? Do you have to be part of a structure and a system to be able to develop? Or is it right place, right time? And this is very much a right place, right time scenario. So I played in a tournament.

Carl (50:45)
Yeah.

hits and stuff, yeah?

Matt (51:07)
back home in South Wales where we came up against the Wales Sevens Development Squad in the semi -finalist particular competition. I played pretty well throughout the competition. It was my first summer of sevens after the injury so I was still a little bit nervous but getting stuck into it.

Carl (51:18)
Okay.

Yeah.

Matt (51:31)
Yeah, we played them in the semi -final, beat them, had a pretty good tournament and what have you. And after the final of that tournament, the coach for the Wales Sevens Development Squad approached me and it was somebody who I'd been familiar with from years and years beforehand through some of the age group stuff, but just sort of lost contact really. And he asked if I wanted to join the squad going into the on the seventh circuit, the GB seventh circuit the following weekend.

Carl (51:44)
Yep.

wow.

Matt (51:59)
over at the Allianz Arena at Sarries Ground. So I played in that. That went relatively well. Then I was asked if I wanted to select it again if I wanted to play in the following weekend circuit up in Edinburgh. Had a really good turnout there. And then the following week was the first round of the European 7 Sefirah competition.

Carl (52:02)
Series, yeah, yeah, nice.

Okay, nice.

Matt (52:27)
where off the back of some of the weekends in the development squad, they decided to bring a couple of players in from there. And I was fortunate enough to be one of them. So yeah, I was able to sort of play in the European 7 circuit for a bit. But I think at that point, it came at a time in my career where I just completely didn't. It sort of blindsided me a bit. The development set up was really for lads who were kind of...

Carl (52:52)
Yeah.

Matt (52:56)
emerging in their careers, you know, the sort of young 20, 21 year olds. I was...

Carl (52:59)
Did you get that sort of imposter syndrome? Did you kind of feel like, I know I should be here, but why am I here? Was that kind of the situation? Or did you feel comfortable you were there? Right.

Matt (53:07)
Nah, I didn't care. I didn't care. So for me, it was a case of like, well, I actually used it as a real sort of big sort of confidence boost, to be honest, because I kind of looked at it and I thought, well, these are, and you could tell, right, and I was probably a bit like this when I was a bit younger, kind of in new environments, high pressure environments, I was capable of dealing with pressure, but sometimes you'd sort of lack the confidence to kind of put your full self out there, right?

Carl (53:21)
Yeah, it's brilliant.

Matt (53:36)
I'd obviously gone through a variety of experience both in life and on the rugby pitch over the course of time. And at 28, you're far more rounded as a person, as a player than you are at when you're 20. So, and I knew, I was just far more confident in my ability. So now I was kind of thrust into this environment with a lot of good players, but I could tell the difference was I was far more mature as a player than some of these younger lads were. And I used that to kind of...

Carl (54:01)
Yeah.

Matt (54:03)
sort of fuel my performance really. So definitely didn't feel like there was any sort of imposter syndrome really. I mean, for me, it was all about, you know, I'm just really proud that I've been able to kind of achieve and get and get to that point. I mean, the ideal goal shortly after that would have been to try and break into the Commonwealth game squad, which was sort of being selected off the back of some of these things. I missed out on that, which is a bit of a shame, but ultimately, you know, what I was proud that I was able to do is probably a really difficult time in my playing career having

Carl (54:06)
Yeah, probably.

Nah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (54:33)
picked up the really bad injury was just break into that sort of set up and have that opportunity to kind of play in that circuit. So yeah, it was really good, really good time.

Carl (54:37)
Yeah.

So how did that sort of come to an end? Did you naturally sort of say, I'm going back towards the 15s and the sort of the rest of life stuff, or was it a case of that conveyor belt of development was coming through and sort of squeezing your spot on the team?

Matt (54:50)
Yeah.

No, probably an amalgamation of quite a few things really. I think one of the things that definitely I've found difficult was the expectation to, you know, the guys trained down at the Vale Training Centre, right? And there was an expectation to kind of train down there twice a week as part of the seventh. Yeah. And obviously I was Southeast England. You know, that's sort of...

Carl (55:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, what, three, three and a bit hours roughly to the veil. Yeah.

Matt (55:26)
Yeah, yeah, it was. And I was able to make a couple of the sessions and it just took its toll. You know, I was working full time. I hadn't had kids by that point, but I was leaving the missus kind of two, three nights a week, every couple of weekends, you know, and all the rest of it. So it was it was it was just it was it was just yeah, it was it was it was difficult. I mean, logistically, that was difficult for me to maintain that commitment.

Carl (55:45)
a lot of aggro.

Yeah.

Matt (55:54)
I was still being asked to kind of play in some of the sort of the development side tournaments that they had on the weekend. But again, I just couldn't, you know, manage the time and commitment to it really. At that stage in my career, you know, if I'd have been 20, 20 when it would have been completely different. But, you know, so yeah, it just sort of petered out really. So, you know, it's a shame, but it kind of is what it is, you know, and ultimately I was kind of...

Carl (56:09)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (56:24)
really pleased I was able to kind of get the opportunity to do it in the first place. So I kind of felt like I'd sort of tick the box with it really.

Carl (56:27)
100%. That's brilliant. As you said, it was on your sort of list to do and you managed to achieve it within your career as well, which is the main thing. There's not many people that are able to set that target and still manage to do it even though it's later than they expected as well. So massive kudos to yourself for that. So now you're at Petersfield. Obviously the Worthing era ended.

Matt (56:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Carl (56:53)
 sort of said that he felt it was time to move on. Was that sort of a similar calling card for yourself and the opportunity at Petersfield to come across was there?

Matt (57:05)
Yeah, I think you sort of, especially when you get to, I mean, Liam's got a couple, I've got a couple of years on Liam in the sense that he's a little bit younger than I am, so he's probably got a bit more time on his side. But I got to a point where I thought, well, you know, I'm physically capable of still playing at the level. But you get to a point where you sort of start to think, OK, well, what's beyond, you know, you can't keep playing forever. What are the opportunities to kind of stay in the game with?

Carl (57:21)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (57:32)
I guess a reasonable amount of influence that you can impart on the game and in, I guess, the circumstances you can enjoy. What those opportunities look like beyond playing. And both Liam and I had done some sort of ad hoc coaching sessions down at Petersfield around the sort of COVID time. And yeah, we would approach to sort of with the idea that we'd go across and sort of joint head coach the Petersfield senior team.

Carl (58:02)
Nice.

Matt (58:02)
And we gave it some thought and obviously Liam and I have been really close mates for years and years and it was something that we caught sort of thought well actually, we both reached the stage where we probably need to consider what we're gonna do after playing as much as we felt we were still capable of playing that in that league rugby. You know, there comes a point where you'd sort of want to go out on your own accord as opposed to trying to be sort of...

Carl (58:20)
Yeah.

Matt (58:29)
pushed out on somebody else's accord really. So we looked at the opportunity that was presented to us and we thought, well, you know, what better opportunity to take a gig on where you're doing it side by side with your sort of best mate really that you've played and respected with as a player and a person for many years. And you go and take the opportunity on together. And I think, you know, we...

Carl (58:31)
Yeah.

Yep.

Matt (58:54)
We hit the ground running. I don't think we expected to hit the ground quite as well, you know, running quite as well as we had then. But it was one of those where you just looked at and go, the opportunity is too good to kind of pass by. And it just felt like the right time, you know. So that's what that came about. You know, obviously the seasons, we just finished our first sort of season as coaches, if you like. I mean, we still played as well. We played about half a games each, I think. But managed to, you know, coach aside.

Carl (59:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (59:22)
I think as a coach you kind of get a completely different sense of value from it, right? You know, you see people developing as individuals, you see things come together collectively as a team. And when you're playing in amongst it, you kind of really don't really care about all that sort of stuff. But as a coach, you go, you can see the bits that you're trying to impart and influence come together. And that gives a huge sense of pride in terms of the value that you're adding and the impact that you're having.

Carl (59:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (59:50)
And we had a really, really, really good season, really good season, both in terms of, you know, development of players, results on the pitch. The club is a superb community run, orientated club, very well supported. I mean, I've played in some games this season, or season just passed, where the atmosphere and the noise is twice that of some of the Nat2 league games I've played in.

Carl (1:00:06)
Yep.

Matt (1:00:17)
when we've travelled the league. So, Worthing's home games are always well supported, but we've always had some good noise there. But we've gone to some away grounds where you're lucky to get a man and his dog down there sometimes. But yeah, Peterfield's been superb. It's been really, really good. I really enjoyed it.

Carl (1:00:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How have you found the transition from a player to a coach? I know it's still player -coach, I know it's still... But as you said, you've got those additional responsibilities and there's probably decisions you make in a game normally when you don't have that additional responsibility. Do you sort of think, well actually I can't do that in front of the lads because I've still got to coach them on a Tuesday and a Thursday, do you know what I mean? Do you sometimes think, hold on, I've got other eyes on me here. No, I've got a...

Matt (1:00:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Carl (1:01:05)
for the greater good, shall we say.

Matt (1:01:05)
You're there to set an example, right? You don't want to be set in the wrong examples. I think we've been quite tactful in the way that we've probably embedded ourselves within the group as one of the lads, if you like, but also maintained an appropriate distance in terms of being able to say, okay, well, there's going to be times we're going to have to have...

Carl (1:01:12)
Yeah.

Matt (1:01:32)
fairly direct conversations with people, whatever, whether it's performance, selection, development, or whatever it is. And sometimes you just want to make sure you've got enough gap between the sort of two crossover in those relationships where you sort of say, well, I can have that, but we can still be pals to a degree in the sense that we need to to kind of get on and sort of play and train together. So I think you just, you don't really think about it, right? I think some of these things, they sort of come quite natural to you, I think.

Carl (1:01:52)
Yeah.

Matt (1:02:01)
So, you know, I think we felt fairly comfortable with how we did it. We probably learned a lot about ourselves as coaches, to be fair. I mean, I found myself being far more direct than Liam was, and I thought it'd be the other way. I mean, I thought, yeah, it was sort of like good cop, bad cop. I thought he'd be the bad cop, and I'd be the one putting the arm around the shoulder, but it actually turned out to be sort of the other way. But I think we both have a certain style that I think works quite well together, and it works.

Carl (1:02:02)
Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

Matt (1:02:29)
quite well for the collective group. The transition has been great. It has been hard sometimes to say which parts of training you get involved in to make sure you maintain that level of involvement as a player. Which parts you step away from as a player and say, I'm just going to do the coaching on this and oversee that. That's been tricky from time to time, but we've got good support team there and the coaching set up where...

Carl (1:02:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (1:02:59)
if we're involved because we need to be for match prep or anything like that. We've got some really strong people in the coaching team that can facilitate parts of the session to allow us to be able to do that.

Carl (1:03:11)
So next season, obviously promotion this year, next season, is it, I asked Liam, Liam sort of gave it up himself and he said that it's gonna probably more than likely be his last season playing. Are you gonna follow suit or are you still gonna be leading the fight and sort of putting your name on the team sheet first?

Matt (1:03:28)
Wow. Yeah.

I've got to say, Liam's said that for the past six seasons, right? So, yeah, I think he quite likes the fuss of people going, no, Liam, you can't retire. So I think he quite likes that. You know.

Carl (1:03:39)
yeah, everyone says it, everyone's gonna say it.

That's it.

I think his Mrs was in the background during the interview as well so I think he was trying to say the right thing at the right time.

Matt (1:03:56)
Hey, you're keeping the peace at home, see. But for me, I mean, I've sort of thought, I take it season by season, right? And I have done for the past three or four, because you get to a point and you go, well, you don't, how's the body going to feel? You know, do you still enjoy it? What's the engagement levels like? And I think for me, my attitude to it or my outlook to it is

Carl (1:04:06)
Yeah.

Matt (1:04:20)
You know, long time retired, right? And what I don't want to do is look back on a career and sort of say, I probably had another year or so. You hear lots of people say all the time, I could have done this. I should have played another. I don't want to be one of them people. So, you know, you know, I also get the same pressures that Liam might have as well at home sometimes about, you know, how much, how long you, how much longer you're going to play.

Carl (1:04:42)
Yep.

Matt (1:04:44)
You know, the wife's fed up with me whinging about aches and pains on a Sunday morning and, you know, lethargic I am or have you, but I wouldn't trade it in because I think, you know, there's going to come a time where I'll miss feeling like that. And I wish I'd have done it for as long as I could have done. So for me, as long as the body feels good, which it does, you know, I keep myself pretty fit and ready to play. I train pretty well. So, you know, as long as I'm fit and healthy and I'm still able to apply.

a level of performance that I think is acceptable for me in terms of my standards. I'll play until I can't do that anymore really.

Carl (1:05:17)
Yeah.

Well, as you said, you sort of moved on from when you're 30. You said you probably played your... Maybe 40's the one. Maybe you play even better after you're 40. You never know.

Matt (1:05:32)
Yeah, well yeah, statistically the odds drop I think, Carl, you know what I mean? But I mean, I don't put a time on it. I think some people go, I'm going to play till I'm 35 or whatever and I'm going to call it a day. And I think for me, I actually get a real buzz off sort of. I mean, you look at something like Jimmy Gopperth, right? I mean, what was he, 40, 40, what? And...

Carl (1:05:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. 42 I think and he's still over in France now.

Matt (1:05:56)
So I look for, you know, you get that, there's nothing quite like, you know, especially when the weather's dry, we haven't had much of that this season, but when the sun's out and the weather's dry and you get to throw the ball about for 80 minutes on a Saturday and the atmosphere's there. And I think that plays a big part, right? If you play at a club where you're well supported, you get good atmosphere, big crowd, that is a big motivation.

Carl (1:06:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (1:06:16)
So I'm going to have to join you in Spain, mate, if the weather's better over there. Some clubs knocking about looking for the 38 -year -old, you know, so best.

Carl (1:06:21)
I'm trying to get the seniors set up so we can do a retirement party out here for a season or something.

Matt (1:06:29)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for me it's all going good. I'll keep playing until I can't basically.

Carl (1:06:37)
Well, that's it. Until your legs can't do what your mind wants you to do, that's probably the point where you think, actually, I've got to stand back a little bit. And while you're still at that point of being able to do it, you've got to keep going. You can't just keep everyone else hanging your boots up for you. So fair play to you. We've obviously gone through the journey now. It's one hell of a journey, mate.

Matt (1:06:44)
Yeah.

Carl (1:07:00)
Who did you play with that went on to make it and was it obvious? By the sounds of it, there's been a few that's probably gonna come out of this closet, hopefully, so.

Matt (1:07:09)
I think, I mean, it's a whole sort of list. Playing in Wales, right, the talent pool is obviously not quite so broad as what you get in England, right? So statistically, if you're playing at a decent level, you're either playing with or against fairly regularly players of really good quality and standard that eventually go on to kind of make it right. And I was fortunate enough I have to play with and against several Welsh.

Carl (1:07:29)
Yeah.

Matt (1:07:34)
internationals, British Lions, caps and all the rest of it. I think, you know, the obvious players, I think, you know, the spring to mind that I played with that you just looked at and thought were people like, I played with Ken Owens at uni, Bradley Davis, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's done well. Bradley Davis, who obviously got capped a few times for Wales in the second row. Lee Williams, nine, but capped in Wales sevens for several seasons on the circuit.

Carl (1:07:47)
Wow, okay. The sheriff, the sheriff, he done it right, didn't he? Yeah.

Okay.

Matt (1:08:04)
I grew up with Jamie Roberts at school. I went to school, played age -grade rugby with Jamie Roberts. But all these players, you know, and then we had the likes of people like Joe Marler I played with at Worthing, Joe Marchant, Dino Lam, all these lads, you always knew that they stood a good chance of making it. They were all, obviously, very good players, but they were all attached to academies where they were going to get that ongoing development.

Carl (1:08:08)
Good job.

Matt (1:08:32)
where their pathway was probably quite mapped out for them. They obviously had to work hard, but they had to have the ability to be able to do it and see it through, right? But they're the kind of obvious ones. The person I felt, will you say obvious? It wasn't obvious at first, but it became obvious really quickly, right? So for me, Joe Launchbury was that person, right? So I remember being at Worthing where, you know, I was quite cynical often as well sometimes in terms of, you know,

Carl (1:08:32)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow, okay.

Matt (1:09:01)
or skeptical of some of the players that we'd sign and you go, we've got a lad that's gonna come along, he's this and he's that and he's done this and that.

Carl (1:09:08)
Was he part of the Quinn system? Was he part of the Quinn system when he could come through or was that completely out of nowhere? Okay.

Matt (1:09:11)
 was part of the Quins system as a younger player, but may have been that, you know, got let go or whatever. He was coming across from a from Christ College over in Horsham, I think. And so I said, who's that lad? He was 18 at the time, I think, you know, fresh out of school or college and what have you. And then he said, he's a new second. And I looked at him, I thought.

Carl (1:09:18)
Yep.

Matt (1:09:37)
He slumped and hunched over the bar stool at the club, signing the registration papers. And I thought, honestly, I thought to myself, if that's the type of player we've got, we've got no chance, right? Because he looked so unassuming, right? There was nothing of him. And I thought, I've just been so uninspired by it, right, at the time. Hopefully he doesn't mind me saying this, right? And...

Carl (1:09:49)
Ha ha ha ha!

Yeah.

We'll have to get him on, see what his opinion of you was.

Matt (1:10:05)
 And I never went on to do anything he did so it's okay, but but he then played his first league game right and within about 20 minutes I've gone for that for 180 miles like Easy, you'll get you'll get capped for England if he if he if he stays in the game to get capped for England because He played in the second row obviously, but but he but he was everywhere. He played like he was in the back

Carl (1:10:12)
Hehehehe

Yeah.

Matt (1:10:33)
five of the scrum for the entire 80 minutes. I thought for an 18 year old lad who'd never been kind of exposed to men's rugby before, just step in and I'd never seen anything like it. And I just thought, right, he completely blew me away. And I was sort of left having to sort of eat my words really in terms of what my perceptions were of him when he sort of first signed the registration papers. I mean, obviously it was a little bit unfair because he hadn't really had the opportunity to kind of...

Carl (1:10:46)
Yeah.

Matt (1:10:58)
throw a ball about yet, but when he played it within 20 minutes, I completely changed my opinion of what this guy was all about. And I'm quite a difficult person to please. And I was going around the squad, physio room, I said, this guy, he's different class, right? And they were like, no, no, he's not that good. I said, this bloke is a different level. He obviously, at the time as well, I think what when he was afforded the opportunity was, you know, fortunately for him and rightly so.

Carl (1:10:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (1:11:27)
We had Will Green as our head coach, the ex -WASPs prop, who still had connections with WASPs at the time. He obviously saw Joe as a huge potential, talent, got him an opportunity to go over to WASPs and Joe's career sort of kicked on hugely from there, and deservedly so because he was way too good for that sort of level. Do you know what I mean? And he's...

Carl (1:11:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (1:11:55)
He's deserved everything he's achieved and he's an absolute quality player. But, you know, again, had him just to see just one season, one season. So he came in, 18 year old and attached to a club straight out of college one season and straight over to Wasps and the air. Yeah. But I just wonder, going back to the conversation we were having earlier on, you know...

Carl (1:11:59)
How long did you have him for? How long was he there for?

Yeah.

was off to a system, nice.

Matt (1:12:18)
do players get, he might have been one of them players. Had it not been for Will Green being at the club, he might have been one of those players that never got picked up. And then there's probably more Joe Launchburys out there, you know? So fortunately for him, and rightly so, he was picked up and he got that opportunity and he's done excellent with it since.

Carl (1:12:29)
100%.

So the next one then, who did you play with that didn't make it but should've? And if there's a story to it, why?

Matt (1:12:46)
It's a tricky question because there's a lot of good players you play with. You just go, can they make it or not? I think the person that springs to mind, he's playing now. So to say he hasn't made it, he still has a chance. Harrison Sims for me, right? He's a young center we had at Worthing Loads of natural ability. He punched well above his weight.

Carl (1:13:09)
Right.

Matt (1:13:14)
in the contact, both in attack and defense. He's just not overly bothered about his off -field discipline. So you've got a player who's got all the ability in the world, just quite lazy with his off -field stuff.

Carl (1:13:28)
bit loose as a goose, just doesn't want to apply.

Matt (1:13:32)
sporadic at best with his S &C, you know, and that's being kind. His nutrition is pretty slack. I mean, it was funny because slack again was being too kind, nonexistent is the right word. And it's funny because last year our S &C coach at Worthing said to him, right, he needed to drop maybe three or four kilos, right? And so he was telling me this.

Carl (1:13:37)
Hahaha!

non -existent really.

Matt (1:14:00)
Well, he had two magnums in his hand, ice cream magnums in his hand, right? After a training session, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like one of the preseason training session on a Thursday. We had ice lollies brought to us as a bit of a treat. And he just told me, he said, recently the S &C coach said, I've got to try and get down to 90. He was about 96 kilos. I've got to get down to 90 kilos. And he stood there with two unwrapped magnum ice lollies. I said, what are you doing? That's not going to help you, is it?

Carl (1:14:04)
But double -handed, like...

Yeah.

Matt (1:14:26)
And he loves a beer, he loves a beer after the game, you know what, have you so? And that's a, he knows my opinion towards him as an individual and what I think he's capable of. I think his ceiling is really high in terms of his potential. And he's still young enough to be able to kick on, I think. I think he's 23? Might be over 23, yeah? 22, 23. But again, he came into the team as an 18 year old and...

Carl (1:14:43)
How old is he now?

Okay.

Matt (1:14:55)
You know, probably took a game or two to kind of acclimatize to the physicality and the speed of the game. But he very quickly adapted and not just adapted when he was kind of like, he's safe. He started having big impacts in terms of his contribution to the team. And I think, you know, he's such a naturally talented player with the ball in his hand, his skill set's really good. His physical game's really good in terms of the contact. I just think, you know, if he's that good without all of that offfield discipline.

Carl (1:14:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (1:15:24)
What could he be? How good could he be if he did just focus on that? So it's up to him really, but I think he's definitely got the potential to kind of kick on and play a lot higher than what he is. Whether that's top, top level or not, maybe that's sort of passed him by, but he can certainly play far, far higher than what he's doing.

Carl (1:15:34)
apply.

Fair play. Anyone else that jumps out? Anyone that you played with at school that missed the opportunity, missed a trial that they should have gone to at uni and been out the night before? Any of those stories there ready for...

Matt (1:15:56)
No, do you know what? I don't, because most of the people I played with back at, back home was, they ended up making it to be fair.

Carl (1:16:06)
Fair play. Well, that's the thing. In different circles, people sort of either replied to myself, but as you said, how many of those that sort of didn't get picked up at the right time got missed out by not being in the right place at the right time, I think is the main part of the system.

Matt (1:16:20)
Yeah, I think, you know, again, nobody, nobody sort of springs to mind really from from back in uni. You know, we had a stalwart of a player at Worthing for years and years in the second row. Charlie McGowan was one of them was one of them players. did he? Yeah. And, you know, but again, I think did Charlie want to also kind of do that? I don't know what he was a huge. I mean, you don't really you don't really make players like.

Carl (1:16:36)
Yeah, Liam mentioned him, yeah. Yeah.

Matt (1:16:49)
Charlie McGowan these days, you know, these kind of enforcing second rows of really horrible people to play, you know, tape the head scum caps and, you know, boss pads and all the rest of it taped up. And he was just, he had an engine on him as well. And he was just such a physical player that just, just went for 80 minutes a week. I mean, he was broken most of the time. So I always managed to put himself on the field and do what he did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we did the tape budget was cut.

Carl (1:16:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, tape, tape, tape and proofing probably is most, most players.

Matt (1:17:18)
rightly so after he retired because he didn't need quite so much tape anymore. So it kept him going. But he was, I think, under the right circumstances, he probably deserved an opportunity as well to do it. But whether he would have wanted to or not, I'm not too sure. I mean, he did have a run up for the Barbarians' Invitational team at one stage. And I think he played England counties as well one summer. So we obviously achieved a fair bit.

Carl (1:17:20)
Heheheheh

Matt (1:17:45)
but obviously never made it sort of top, top level in terms of week in, week out in the game.

Carl (1:17:49)
Amazing. I could easily carry on with this forever, Matt. I think there's plenty more to go, mate, but you've already committed an hour and a half of your time to talk to everyone on this pod already, mate. So I think there's probably plenty for maybe you and Liam to jump back on another pod in the future, maybe.

Matt (1:18:10)
Yeah, that'd be great mate, yeah.

Carl (1:18:11)
But maybe once we get the pre -season out of the way from Petersfield, sort of see what you forecast for the season ahead, I think that would be a really good pod to get you guys on there as well.

Matt (1:18:20)
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It's been really good, mate. I think you don't get a chance sometimes to sit down and spend an hour and a bit just talking rugby and a lot of the things I'd forgotten about, my pathway and all the rest of it. And it's something when you sit down and give yourself a bit of time to reflect, you're going to go, actually, you did quite a lot of stuff that's happened over the years.

Carl (1:18:32)
Yeah.

Yes. I'm sure everyone that gets to listen to this pod, mate, will be over in a moon. So I just wanna say thank you from myself for your time and for everyone that gets the opportunity to listen to your journey and who you've come across. And hopefully they can take a few ideas of how, if they're young enough, this is the path, this is what I've got to apply myself and where to go from it, mate. So I really appreciate it.

Matt (1:19:07)
Brilliant. Now not at all mate and thanks for having me on, I've enjoyed it.

Carl (1:19:10)
Well, that brings this pod to an end. If you made it this far, I just want to take a moment to thank you for listening right through and express my gratitude for following yet another episode of Rugby Through the Leagues. So, in today's episode, we discuss Matt's amazing journey, starting playing rugby in Wales to becoming a stalwart in Worthing, and now at Petersield as a joint head coach with Liam Perkins. We also managed to find out Matt's opinion of Joe Launchbury,

changed pretty quickly once he saw him play. week we have Mark Witcher on from Portsmouth Rugby Club. We discuss his rugby career as a one club man, then coaching the Portsmouth Valkyries and Hampshire Women's with some amazing, amazing results in there with an unbeaten season to throw in the mix as well. There are also a few rants about the current state of the RFU and World Rugby too, just to...

mix it up as usual on the podcast. Once again, a huge thank you to you all for tuning in. Thank you and goodbye.