Rooming with God

Wardie (Andy Ward) were told they were rooming together. Great, I thought, I'm on my billy here, and the boys were highfiving each other. So I asked the receptionist: "Who am I rooming with?"

"A Mr Carlos Spencer sir."

"Oh really? Alright lads, who the man? You enjoy rooming together." That quietened them. I wasn't smug. Not even slightly.

Carlos is actually a fairly quiet fella but what a player. The way he can just put the ball on a platter for you - he's running at 100 miles an hour in one direction and you're going the other way, and you just find it stuck in your hand.

Even in training during the week, he'd spin-pass behind his back to Cullen who was going the other way. Unbelievable. One time in training they were attacking the blind side. The winger came in to hit Matt Burke and Carlos passed the ball over Matt Burke's head and the winger's, and came around and took it himself. Two years ago I named Carlos Spencer as my favourite player. "He's God." Now I'm rooming with him and playing with him. That is freaky.

Rewind: Good to be back BECAUSE I didn't get a chance to play with the boys over the summer I was looking forward to the Japan game that much more. I'm one for analysing games afterwards and they really took an awful lot of beating for the first 20 or 30 minutes. To be 6-3 down after 25 minutes wasn't exactly what we were looking for, and potentially it could have been more, they could have scored a try but for my "Gary Pallister clearance". What was I thinking? It was a good move to be fair, but they didn't score and we beat them 78-9. It started to become a little bit of a try-fest.

Bullish Boks and the field

The day before the game South Africa were given first choice of Lansdowne Road and they chose 10.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.. We walked over at 11.30 a.m. from the Berkeley, which takes about 10 minutes. They were still training there, which is not really on, and a few individuals walked onto the pitch and said: "Look, you were given first option, time's up, we want to train now, fair's fair." They didn't take too kindly to it. They went into a huddle and you could just tell what was being said: "Boys, I want you to take this into consideration for the game, the bad manner in which we've been treated." We had to laugh about it.

At the start of the match, there was a lot of "sledging" from them, especially from Robbie Fleck to me. I met him a couple of times subsequently in the week of the Baa-baas game and he's actually a good bloke. He's just a bit of a prat on the pitch. But people accept that. Once the final whistle goes, we're all best mates. We knew that the South Africans analyse games thoroughly, so we had to play a different type of game against the Japanese. We hit it up the middle whereas against the South Africans we knew we had to throw the ball wide because we didn't want to be mauling with them. So we kept a good few back moves up our sleeves and all week before the South African game we practised them, and the preparation produced one of our tries.

It was a well-worked move. Humpy's pass, my pass to Denis, who ran a beautiful line, and he drew Delport, and Tbone (Tyrone Howe) held a beautiful depth on it.

Unfortunately, the move before halftime when I didn't give the pass on an overlap was a killer. I think the reason why I didn't give that pass was subconscious - that move had gone so badly in training during the week. Then there was Corne Krige's breakaway try when I knocked the ball on. I should have concentrated on just holding it but I tried to continue with the move, and with so much going on in my head I forgot to catch the thing. But I would be more upset about missing the pass just before half-time than I would about knocking the ball on. As Woody said afterwards, it was a serious missed opportunity.

Me, Myself and 'Rock

I'd lost a yard compared to last season in the first few months of this campaign but I felt it come back in the South African game. I still don't think I'm quite as sharp as last year, but I'm definitely getting there. I think I'm at 96 per cent, very little in it, and to be honest I'd be happy keeping a constant of 96 per cent.

On the Saturday afternoon before the Baa-baas game, the boys were listening out for the AIL results. I still like to play for 'Rock and although there are times when you have to slog it out I don't think I'll do myself any favours if I play when there's mud up to your knees and the advantage my speed gives me has been taken away. I have to really prioritise things this season.

I took a week off after the South African game and just chilled out. Had one fantastic night out with the boys from home, such a good laugh. That week I did a skills session for the Rapid programme with Jason Sherlock, tackling, passing, running and kicking. But being the excellent kicker that he is, I really needed "Rog The Boot" (Ronan O'Gara) to show how it should be done.

And now for something completely different

The Baa-Baas was special. It provided the opportunity to play a serious game of rugby in what was almost a sevens style. You could try things. It felt as though if you did one good thing and one bad thing, they cancelled each other out. It was interesting to get to know the boys, such as the Kiwis: Carlos, Cully, Burkey, and Latho, as I can call them now. We were treated really well, stayed in the best hotels, taken to the best restaurants. We trained for about one hour a day.

One night we happened to meet the South Africans and got talking to them. I had to get to see what Robbie Fleck was like off the pitch and he turned out to be good craic. Corne Krige is a really, really nice fella, as is Stefan Terblanche.

It was always my intention to wear my pale blue and white schools socks. I didn't even know about Brendan Mullin doing it. I'm so proud of my two pairs' of 'Rock socks - in 'Rock eyes a prized item. I probably cherish them more than the jersey. I had to do it for Skids (Ciaran Scally) as well. He's a serious 'Rock man.

It gave Buddy (Malcolm O'Kelly) the idea to do the same. It was hilarious. He was trying to stretch these things to fit his legs for hours. "Mal, what are those idiotic-looking things?" "They're `the Logue' (Templeogue) socks man. For the Logue."

Christian Cullen is now my favourite player. He doesn't say a helluva lot even on the pitch, and I didn't think he had his best game ever but when I looked at the video, he was just all over the place. His tackling I hadn't noticed, and his support play is ridiculous. I remember at one time Carlos made a break and I was second or third in support. I wasn't steaming along because I was fairly tired, and the next thing this steam train just came by, and I thought "how can you possibly be doing this? Okay, see you later." And he wasn't even at full tilt.

I'm amazed at Ron Cribb's skill level, like that pass for Pichot's try. When he looked away I thought "what are you doing? Pass to the guy next to you." I was sold as well, so I'm not surprised the Springboks didn't get within a bull's roar of the fella. If that wasn't the greatest try of all time . . .

It was tough going though. An unwritten rule was that the ball wasn't to be kicked. In the second half, they just smashed us up the middle and wore us down. We didn't do any scrummaging or boshing all week. Had we had a tough week's training I think we'd have beaten them. We were 22 individuals, there was very little shape.

My highlight wasn't my own try, it was tackling Corne Krige because we'd met during the week. I saw him coming at me and thought: "I have to put him on his arse." Even though he got the ball away it was one of those tackles for the crowd. That's what those games are about. Both of us knew it. He'd stopped before impact but I kept going. As he got up he called me a little something or other. Perhaps not repeatable here.