Refuse To Be Denied by Sam Warburton

Author:Sam Warburton [Warburton, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471113109
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

8

Halloween Horrors

It was not the ideal time to return home from New Zealand. After seeing the World Cup final and attending the IRB awards dinner, I got back to Cardiff just before Halloween. And there is no better excuse to knock on your door than Halloween.

It seemed that a few more people knew where I lived in Thornhill than was the case when I left for the World Cup. One evening just after I’d got back, Derwyn was at my house because we had plenty to talk about. We had to plot a way through all the inevitable media stuff resulting from the World Cup. And there on my doorstep was instant evidence of how difficult it was going to be to keep a low profile over the following months.

The doorbell didn’t stop ringing. Rachel was trying to revise for her exams upstairs, and I was downstairs trying to talk seriously with Derwyn. It wasn’t just kids coming to the door doing their ‘trick or treat’, either. There were parents waiting at the bottom of the drive with their cameras too.

In the end Derwyn had had enough and started answering the door himself. I think the kids were a bit alarmed to see a 6ft 10in bald bloke standing there growling at them!

I might have been able to avoid the kids that night, but I had to face the press sometime. I had to tell them what I thought about my red card. So the week after I arrived home, on Thursday 3 November, Cardiff Blues organised a press conference and photo shoot for all their returning World Cup players. So alongside me dressed in the new pink change kit were Bradley Davies, Gethin Jenkins, Lloyd Williams, Jamie Roberts and Leigh Halfpenny. The event started at 12.45pm, and I didn’t leave much before 6pm. The others had gone long before.

It was savage. There is no other word for it. I knew I had to do it and I’d like to think I was civil and polite throughout, while giving everyone – photographers, journalists and broadcasters – everything they wanted. But five hours’ worth? Wow.

As I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t been told what to say. There was no pre-conceived plan that I was going to admit that I agreed with Alain Rolland’s decision. But that was what I did. As I have already said, I still think it was rather unfair, but by the letter of the law Rolland was right. So the next day the headlines screamed out: ‘Warburton: Rolland was right to show me World Cup red card.’

This is the gist of what I said: ‘I have seen it played back, the tackle is a lot uglier than I thought it was at the time. When I looked at it on the replays it looked worse than I thought it was. I didn’t intend to do anything like that and I had only had a yellow card in my career up until that point so it was a shock

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