Keith Duggan gets an insight into what makes Ireland second row Gary Longwell tick and learns of his determination to stay in the team
Gary Longwell distils his sporting life into one simple mission. A combination of God and genetics and good Northern Irish cooking gave him this frame, this colossal, imposing body, full of sharp edges and right angles and a glorious, Romanesque nose. Sometimes it's a pain, waltzing his frame through a world designed by and for people almost a foot smaller than him. But it clarifies matters and has brought him to where he most wanted to be. Right now, his role on this earth is to go on hurling his 18 stones wherever necessary to ensure that Ireland keep winning. And to make sure that he stays on this team.
"I remember reading this thing about Anthony Foley and it said that every team needs its toilet cleaners," he says in his soft north Ulster tones.
"That's probably how it is with me. A team needs its street cleaners. They want me at the bottom of rucks, they want me to make the tackles, to hit rucks, they want work-rate. And I am happy to give that."
Italy is the latest episode in the quietly remarkable story of Gary Longwell. There is a prospect that the Irish sporting public will take the national rugby team to its heart over the next few months. It has its fair share of intrigue and heroes.
Big Gary's story is much like the man himself: not flashy but wholly absorbing and real. Parachuted in from his beloved provincial scene in Ulster in 2000, he is the guy on this team who made them believe. He was 29 when he first played for Ireland. Old enough to make it count and young and hungry enough to want to have a say in the script for a while to come. After 20 minutes against Japan came his first full cap against the Springboks in Lansdowne Road on a crisp autumn day in 2000.
"Shocked," was his own cocky appraisal of his selection. His knees quaked so much that, in maiden aunt fashion, he sat down on the grass and sipped a glass of water. And that was just after the bands played the anthems! Finally, he took a deep breath and charged.
"I suppose I was surprised to see him out there," says Tom Young, who first put a rugby ball in his hands at Ballyclare High School in the early 1980s.
"When he came into first form he was already very tall and not all that co-ordinated at first. And he was a really gentle, pleasant fellow, a model pupil. So back then, I would not have anticipated him one day playing for Ireland. But what Gary always had was an enthusiasm for the game."
Being tall in Glengormley in those days, being The Big Lad, was no cakewalk."I think in first year, I was already taller than a lot of my teachers," laughs the player now.
Height's many disadvantages were hurled at him hot and heavy during those times, when his friends suddenly developed vertigo just from hanging around with him. He was into cricket in his early teens and developed this unwieldy, scything bowling style that wasn't exactly Viv Richards in its sheen, but it worked. The mere sight of him motoring towards a delivery probably terrified many a prospective batsman into submission. Cricket was a pastime, however. By 15, it was clear there was only one way to go. Rugby has been the sanctuary of many a big man. So it was with Longwell.
"He did undergo a transformation," says Frank Upton, who also taught and coached Longwell at Ballyclare.
"What he has done is fully live up to the potential he showed at school . By the time he was in fifth form, schools rugby was probably too easy for him. I think the advent of professionalism was the salvation of Gary as a player in that it laid out the structures for him to reach a peak. When he runs with the ball, you can still see the old Gary, with that hunched style. He is not an Eric Miller or like big O'Kelly, doesn't have that style. But what a player."
Longwell paints a happy and uncomplicated picture of life in Glengormley at that time. His older brothers, Alan and David, knocked the cobwebs off him out in the back garden. Five Nations Saturdays were the best and he has a vivid recall of raucous celebrations with dives and cushions after the Triple Crown of 1983 and Kiernan's drop-goal for the win against England two years later. The sectarianism and the bombs, happily, never affected him.
"Thankfully not. It was a quiet country area. Checkpoints and stuff like that, but we were born into it so we didn't notice it. I went to Scotland once and I remember opening my bag for a security guy expecting him to want to search it. And he just looked at me like I had two heads. It was only when you went away that you saw the differences in your own country."
Rugby gave him opportunities like that. In his senior year, Ballyclare embarked on a rugby visit to Russia. It was in the era of Perestroika, when the economy was smashed but the sense of goodwill was incredible. In Rostov, the locals hammered big pipes into the ground and used a rope as a crossbar.
"And they knew how to play as well," says Young. "Gary came up against a few lads of his own size then. We were in Petersburg, I think it was, on a tour when we stopped at a life-size statue of Peter the Great. Gary couldn't believe that this guy was two metres seven in height and that he was only two metres. I think he was relieved."
By the time Longwell had advanced to Queens, his co-ordination caught up with his growth and he was a young man with the potential to be a serious ball player. Trouble was, his personality got in the way. Like a lot of uncommonly tall men. Longwell is as easy going and charming as they come. Days were filled with the rigours of applied mathematics, evenings with rugby balanced with the fun of being a student.
"So I'd be at the gym and I'd lift a few weights and then I'd find someone for a chat. Have a drink of water, have another chat. I wasn't serious about it, wasn't at all committed."
And so he became a stalwart for Ulster but an outsider looking in on the national scene. There was probably some element of luck in his reprieve. Out of the blue came a call from Brian O'Brien in 2000 asking him if he could cover for Paddy Johns, who had become stricken with flu. Mick Galwey and Bob Casey were also out. O'Brien had visited last chance saloon to find Longwell, who had dropped off the A squad radar the previous year.
But his recall coincided with an abrupt change in lifestyle. A cursory IRFU fitness test brought about an epiphany. Longwell saw the words "In the comfort zone. Miles off international standard" and something gave within him. He was stung and hurt and realised that the comment was perfectly true.
"I was not fit to play international. That's just the fact of it. I didn't have the right approach to the game."
By the tail end of his 20s, the big man had forsaken nights on the beer and cosy sessions in the gym for a hard and unforgiving regime. Maybe he would never play for Ireland but at least it wouldn't be for the want of effort. Davy Tweed, who reached the promised land of international rugby at the age of 35, became the poster boy of his imagination. Almost too late, Longwell realised that playing for Ireland was all he ever wanted.
"You see young lads now, 21 or 22, getting their first cap and you wonder if it means that much to them. Then they might be gone after a game or two, never heard of again."
He could have disappeared into that twilight zone, a gangly raw lineout jumper who didn't quite cut it. Instead, he arrived with Ulster's European Cup experience behind him. He was hardened and guileful and had the marks of war to show for it.
Warren Gatland and Eddie O'Sullivan both saw the resilience under the obliging nature, the ready word for everyone.
"I talk with Mark McCall often. His experience with Ireland was of winning the odd game but mostly losing. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am tobe playing on this team, the talent that is there and the potential."
Sometimes the capriciousness of it all spooks him. The road not taken and all that. It is not so hard to imagine that he might be winding down at this stage, resuming his life in the chalky world of maths. The theorems can wait. These days, brutal physics is Longwell's thing. The willing toilet-cleaner on a team full of cool clean stars. He feels privileged and blessed and doesn't even have to look over his shoulder to know there is a gang of top-class second rows waiting in the wings, outside looking in at him. Somehow he has by-passed them all. Perhaps that is why he was serious when he asked the Irish team doctors to slice off the top of one of his fingers before the Welsh game in 2001 rather than forsake his place to injury.
There is 6ft 7in of him for heaven's sake: who would miss a tiny bit of finger? The medics said thanks, but no thanks.
"Oh, that," Longwell laughs now. "It was just, well, I don't think anyone would want to miss a game and give someone a chance to take their place. I missed wins against Wales and England because of that. And the competition in this squad is such that you might just not get back in. I was desperate to play. I want to make the decision tough for the management, so I can't afford to back off. It's a frightening position to be in at the moment."
But it's not. Today, Gary Longwell's position is pure and simple: it is as Ireland's first-choice number four. He is 31, has 21 caps and 10 fingers (just). It's all the maths he ever wanted.
