My Life in Rugby – James Buckland The former Leicester, Wasps and London Irish hooker and Next Phase Academy director. WHEN I started out in rugby, I had a few opons inside and outside of the game. A place at Sandhurst was one of them, but they all very quickly fell to the wayside when Leicester asked me to sign in 2002. Back then you were encouraged to focus 100 per cent on your rugby, whereas now clubs see the benefit of having a more rounded player on their hands, someone who has interests outside of the game. It is something we promote at the Next Phase Academy. Taking Leicester up on their offer was an easy decision for me, although Johnno’s mono- brow stare in my direcon when I’d thrown yet another lineout two feet over his head was the price that I regularly had to pay. Throwing was an issue for me in the early stages of my career. I remember playing in a 10s tournament as a trial for the England U19s. The coach, Geoff Wappe, pulled me to one side aerwards, and between puffs on his pipe, he said ‘fair play, you can play a bit’. Geoff hadn’t made much effort to speak to any of us, so I was really chuffed that he took the me out to tell me that. However, the next day, it was me to do some work around the set-piece, and I couldn’t hit a barn door, so that was me done. It was the same with Leicester. I was top try-scorer for the U21s in my first season but Deano pulled me in and said, ‘listen, I need someone who can throw straight, I don’t care about how many tries you score’. At Leicester, I was surrounded by seasoned premiership players and internaonals, as a young fella you knew that one bad throw at an important me in a match could cost you your place and it would be a long slog to work your way back in. Relishing the confrontaonal side of the game, I probably played my best rugby on Tuesday mornings at Tigers. In my first season, we were doing some lean-on scrums and in the opposion front row Julian White was on the ght-head side. He changed his posion and came straight across me and the young academy loose-head I had alongside of me just disintegrated. I remember having my head between my ankles and thinking something is going to pop here. Fortunately, it wasn’t my back or neck, it was just my ribs. At the beginning of my second season, I was named in the squad for the opening Premiership match of the season. But I suffered bad leg break in training and that put me out for the season. I did manage to get back fit in me to go off to New Zealand and play Premier Club rugby in Wellington. You found yourself playing against Hurricanes players filtering down into the club teams, people like Jerry Collins, Cory Jane and Thomas Waldrom. The standard of rugby was so good, and it was played in the right spirit. It was a great experience for me, and I came back full of confidence and broke into the first team in that third season.

I was a bit of an individual back in the days when individualism wasn’t as celebrated as much as it is now. I asked quesons of coaches and tested their paence and I just think my me at Leicester had come to an end aer five years. The year I le, Cockers stepped up into a more senior coaching role and he brought in his own players in Mefin Davies and Benjamin Kayser, both internaonals. At Wasps, I was behind Raphael Ibanez, Joe Ward and Rob Webber. They were all good players, and the team was winning most weeks. When it got to the week of the semi-finals, all of us fringe players were told we didn’t have to come into the club anymore. We shook hands and apart from coming in for a bit of S&C work I thought that was me done as a Wasps player, as I‘d already signed for London Irish for the following season. Having signed off, I went to my local club’s end-of-season and had a few beers. I got a phone call the next morning from Geech telling me that Raffa had a back spasm and as Rob Webber was away with England Sevens, I was needed on the bench for the big game against Bath. So, not wanng to let anyone down, I’ve rocked up and done the, ‘don’t breathe on anyone, get outside and start sweang it out’ roune. About 15 minutes in, Joe Ward got a neck spasm and I ended up playing 65 minutes in a Premiership semi-final a bit hungover. I prided myself on my professionalism and wasn’t in the habit of drinking before matches. Geech gave me a pat on the back aerwards, saying ‘fair play for stepping in’ and he asked me about staying on but I was already headed up the road. Raffa and Joe were both fit for the following week, so I was only a travelling reserve for the final. At London Irish I was also privileged to play with some more great players and interesng characters. I joined the same year as Chris Hala’ufia. I played against him for Wasps the year before, in the A League final. He was playing for Quins and you didn’t even know he was on the pitch. A few months later, he was tearing up trees every week. Coaching Chris later on in my career was also fun! At that point, my set-piece got stronger and had started to overtake my loose play. Knowing I wasn’t quite as mobile as I used to be, I had to think a lot more about the game. It’s a good job I did because in the February, sll with a couple of years le to run on my contract, I took what I thought was an innocuous off-the-ball blow to my knee and it immediately swelled up. I soldiered on with it unl the end of the season but when I had surgery in the summer to find out what was wrong, the surgeon gave me the bad news that I had a big hole in my femur and that was me finished playing. All in, I played with some of the best players at three great clubs. With and against Internaonals from all over the world, World Cup winners and Brish Lions. I picked up a few England Saxon caps and I was involved in 5 Premiership finals, winning 2, and I was a Heineken Cup finalist. Although, other than the random role I played in the Wasps semi- final, I don’t consider I played much of a role in the business end of any of the other campaigns. As I generally only le the bench when we were either going to win or going to lose. I couldn’t tell you where any of my medals are. It was always only ever about the game for me. One piece of trivia, I was told that I do have the most bench appearances in Premiership finals. Just in case that ever comes up on Queson of Sport. Lyn Jones gave me my first senior coaching role, looking aer the London Welsh scrum the first year they were in the Premiership, the scrum ended up being stascally the best in the league, so I was quite proud of that. I also have Lyn to thank for reconnecng me with Simon Amor, who I’d played with at Wasps, and he asked me across to London Scosh where he gave me free rein to build a nasty forward pack, and I ended up doing the defence as well. The league was a bit of a Jouet league at that me, and rather than be a copycat team, we worked to create a compeve style to combat the Jouet. We developed a feared forward pack that would go out and maul and brawl to create space for the guys outside. Most importantly we had a great group of lads who all bought into a style of play which connued to evolve to remain at the head of the compeve curve. It was a style that worked for us and we took some big scalps rising from 11th to 3rd in my third season, but aer a close defeat at Nongham, and a dominant win at home to Leeds, the guys who’d come in to replace Simon wanted to change our style, and I disagreed, was overruled and le. I le them in third and that’s where they finished. Whilst looking for a new role, I kept doing scrum coaching for London Irish and I also had the opportunity to do two games with Russia in the Naons Cup, that was a lot of fun. By now, London Welsh were back in the Premiership and struggling. I was hesitant to get involved when Rowland Phillips asked me at first. But when I looked at the fixture list and saw we had Leicester at Welford Road coming up, I said, ‘I’ll do it’. We got well beaten in the end but at half-me, we were winning 10-7, and the Welford Road crowd was not happy. In the second half, a streaker ran on the pitch and Chris nailed him; he also nailed Lawrence Pearce and got himself a red card. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out in my next coaching role at Rosslyn Park. I learnt a lot about myself then, though, in the way that I handled players and how I needed to understand their movaons. I’ll be the first to admit I was too bone-headed at mes and that I wasn’t the right fit for that role. So, it was back to London Welsh, who were now back in the Championship, and we ended up going on a good run. The club’s money problems refused to go away, however, and we were unable to build on the momentum of a top-five finish the season before. It took a temporary license from the RFU – and a lot of luck with injuries, as we only had 22 players – for us to be able to fulfil our fesve fixtures. We not only turned up, but we beat London Scosh, with a bonus point, and then went up to Leeds and got a losing bonus point. Sadly, the plug was then pulled by the powers that be. I look back at my playing and coaching career and I think the people I built good relaonships with were the ones who appreciated my honesty. The trouble is, to quote a famous film, not everyone can handle the truth.

Yes, I’d sll back myself to do a top job but I am really enjoying doing what I do now. I get to coach and enjoy my rugby back at my junior club, Aylesbury RFC, which is my rugby home. I would not consider any of my pro clubs to be my club. Aylesbury is where I learnt the game and it’s where my girls are now learning the game. My role is to support all the players and coaches throughout the club to achieve a ‘one club’ inclusive ethos, and I’m fortunate to rub shoulders with people from all backgrounds, from Policians to Postmen, who all share a genuine love for the game. My role at Aylesbury fits well with the Next Phase Academy, where we combine a passion for sport with further educaon. We enrol both boys and girls and place each student at the centre of their own programme and support them on their own pathway to a career in sport. We have rugby students now who are being coveted by senior academies but are keeping their opons open because they have their heart set on specific university courses. Our students love sport but also have lots of other interests, and we want to support those interests to produce more rounded individuals beer equipped for both sports careers and life aer sport.