It’s possibly been the most redemptive story of the season so far. Maybe you had to be on the Lions tour to appreciate Rory Best’s pain. It’s doubtful if his career had hit such a high-profile low point. Yet he arrives at the first autumnal Test on the back of typically strong Ulster form with ne’er a question mark about his status as Ireland’s first-choice number two.
Best can even relive his Lions experience with a degree of gallows humour. He had wanted to be a Lion so desperately, but having been overlooked initially four years ago and again when Jerry Flannery was ruled out, he missed the original cut once more in April, only to be called up on the eve of departure when Dylan Hartley was suspended.
“When I look back on it now, I thought I had got over the fact that I didn’t make the initial squad. But probably when I got there you can’t help but feel a little bit inferior.”
Nor did the carve-up of the initial tour games dispel his sense of inferiority. Of the first five tour games, Richard Hibbard and Tom Youngs each started two, and had been a replacement in two others, whereas Best had been given one start and one appearance off the bench in midweek games against the Force and the New South Wales/Queensland Country XV. "That's the one thing I wished, that I'd have got more game time."
Clearer signal
He'd hit his first two throws, they'd read his third, but then an overthrow which saw the hosts break downfield sewed the first seeds of doubt. Being picked for a third midweek game, against the Brumbies in Canberra four days out from the first Test, was an even clearer signal, and the captaincy only compounded what he calls the fear of the unknown.
“Even stupid things like: ‘Do I carry the (toy) Lion out and what do I do with it on the pitch?’ Instead of focusing on my rugby, you get distracted by the sideshow.
“I knew that I couldn’t make any mistakes if I wanted to be in the Test side, and it was very tough for me mentally. Not getting to throw to Paulie ever, and always playing the midweek games, you felt you weren’t there. Then the final straw was the Brumbies game. It was just a disaster.
"The first throw went well, and Ben Youngs nearly scored off it, but then they smothered the life out of us, and we struggled, and I struggled. It was one of those when the harder you try, the worse it gets. You fall off tackles because you try to hit too hard."
The Lions coughed up eight throws, including six out of 15 on his watch, before he was called ashore after 56 minutes with not a hole in the ground big enough to swallow him up.
“I never want to go back to Canberra, is the lesson from that experience,” he quips.
His entire family had arrived by then. His brother Simon’s five-day trek took in the Counties game, before his mum Pat, dad John, along with wife Jody and their two kids, Ben and Penny, arrived four days before the Brumbies’ game. His brother Mark and sister Rebecca had also arrived for a fortnight.
He admits their combined presence may have added “a wee bit more pressure, but after the Brumbies’ game it was nice to have them there, especially Jody and the kids”.
It made the rest of the tour seem less interminable, all the more so as Ben's third birthday was the day after the first Test; Adidas providing a pair of boots with his name on them. "I had to wait until I was 25 before I got anything on the side of my boots," notes Best. His only other outing was for the last midweek game against the Rebels a week after his Brumbies' fiasco, when he replaced Hibbard after 55 minutes and located his five darts. "At least the Lions experience finished on a bit of high note, relatively speaking."
Squad spirit
Best also enjoyed the sense of occasion around that Sydney decider, along with the training and the squad spirit. "The boys were great. There was no-one you didn't want to be stuck in a lift with. There was none of that."
Ulster gave him five weeks’ holidays, and how he needed them. In his first week home there was Mark’s stag in Biarritz and Pamplona. A week later he was best man at the wedding of an old University friend, Jimmy Nicholls, in Norfolk; enabling Best to take in the first day of the Lord’s Ashes test. He and Jody went from there on to Biarritz for Paul O’Connell’s wedding – a four-day trip – and the following week was Mark’s wedding in Edinburgh. They spent week five in Donegal.
A sports psychologist couldn't have planned it better, and Best has Mark Elliot in that capacity to call when he needs to. In pre-season, he quickly began working on his darts with throwing coach Allen Clarke, although he now realises he perhaps became too reliant on him, and Clarke has helped him to resolve issues himself.
It’s a hell of a skill, aiming at an imaginary target up to three and a half metres high, about 800 millimetres wide, and anything from six to 15 metres in distance. “And you’re relying on the lift being right, the jump being right, the guy jumping in the same spot every time.”
Still, the first week was a struggle. Turning 31 that first week back, on August 15th, didn't fill him with glee either, but he had plenty of support from Mark Anscombe and David Humphreys, team-mates and supporters.
He threw “really really well” at the two-day Irish camp and Best took that confidence into his seasonal return at home to Treviso. He knew everybody would be keenly watching his first couple of throws, and though Ulster only had five in all, they won them all, and Best made 15 tackles to boot.
At home to Leicester in the Heineken Cup, they won 11 of their 12 throws, before a big test away to Montpellier, and Jim Hamilton and Fulgence Ouedraogo. "We lost two (out of 12) and both of them were missed lifts, so I was happy. We won a lot of tail ball, so it was a big statement by us." In every sense.
Revived spring
Best has returned to the Irish fold with a revived spring in his step. He's looked on at Leinster and noted how a well-drilled unit put together long winning runs under Joe Schmidt without their frontline Irish players.
“That’s the sign of a good coach to me. He’s very well organised. I like that he puts pressure on you to be a good rugby player. We have a couple of power plays, if you like, three phase calls but he might then take an aspect of two of them and throw them together, just off the cuff.
“He puts pressure on you to work that out, which I quite like, because physically I’m not the best specimen. I’m not that fast but I’d like to think in my head I’m a good rugby player, and that I can think quickly.”
John Plumtree is, he says, more laid-back than Schmidt, but having worked with Muller at the Sharks he can see similarities to the Ulster lineout drills.
“It’s an exciting time, a little bit of a step into the unknown, but with a similar look to what we have done. It’s a tough start, but look at the quality we still have across the board.”
Best is out of contract at the end of the season, so what’s the story Rory?
“At this stage I have to do what’s right for me and my family. I hope that means staying in Ireland. I love playing for Ulster, especially having come through all the crap times when we were useless. Now we’re a good team and it’s really enjoyable to actually go out and be confident that whoever we’re playing we can beat them, but at the same time there’s maybe not that many big contracts left in me, so I have to make sure as a family we’re as prepared when I retire as possible.”
Discussions probably won’t start until after the November Tests. He doesn’t want any distractions this month anyway. He’s relaxed again. After his summer horribilis, the biggest lesson is to ensure he doesn’t let outside factors put undue pressure on him like that again.
Heck, if it doesn’t break you, it can make you.
