LONDON WELSH venture out against Exeter Chiefs at the Kassam stadium, Oxford, this afternoon for their first Aviva Premiership game since promotion from the Greene-King IPA Championship to rugby’s fiercest league. Think of a baby gazelle, born unsteady on its legs, wandering into an area where hungry lions are known to prowl.
The gap between the divisions, for all the improvement in the Championship, is a chasm. The weak are devoured. London Welsh, rather bizarrely, have dispensed with more than 20 players from their thrilling promotion push of last season and signed as many others, so the fledgling campaign begins uncertainly. They are expected, by many, to fall straight back.
Reassurance came readily last week, however, as they completed their preparations at their training headquarters next to Kew Gardens at Old Deer Park — where, once led by John Dawes and inspired by JPR Williams, Gerald Davies, John Taylor and Mervyn Davies, London Welsh became one of the greatest attacking club teams of all time and produced seven Lions in one party.
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That reassurance came in the shape of an Englishman, the powerful Tom May, centre and team captain. May, a Londoner, may have won only two England caps but he has been one of the most influential players in the history of the Premiership.
“I’ve just finished my 18th pre-season,” he said last Thursday. “It’s surreal. It’s a good thing I’ve always loved training.”
May, 35, began as a teenager with Richmond, then moved north to Newcastle Falcons with another southern lad, one Jonny Wilkinson. He was there as part of a golden generation of backs who helped Newcastle to win two national cups. They never reached their upper limits because nobody thought to sign some golden forwards to back them up.
In 2009, after 200 Premiership games and 47 tries, May left to follow Wilkinson to Toulon — “a sensational experience”. His move there was a tribute to May’s excellence, since most of the other recruits in the South of France were global greats.
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In 2011 he began two enjoyable years at Northampton Saints and is now in his second season of another crusade — to establish the Welsh in the top flight and make them an attraction and commercial proposition in Oxfordshire. May cannot be accused of seeking an easy life.
How can the disparate new group, drawn from around the world and of which All Black scrum-half Piri Weepu is the best known, possibly bond in time for the Chiefs today and for the season?
“It’s been made a lot easier by the way that Justin [Burnell, the clever head coach] has recruited. They don’t just go out looking for good players who play the way they want. They spend ages looking at the character of the people. There are no egos and nothing flash, which is something that can break a group.
“When we have lunch people never seem to sit in the same groups. It’s refreshing because at some of the clubs I’ve been at the same gang sat together. Now we have 35-year-olds sitting with the teenagers. Socially, it’s nice.”
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Clearly the bond is important but successful teams need something to stir deep within and a cause for which to spill blood. May was part of a crusade in the northeast to establish the Falcons, part of the vivid rise of Toulon; part of the archetypal town club at Northampton, with the mass local following. What are he and his new teammates playing for at London Welsh, whose home is neither in London nor Wales, who train in Richmond and who have been thrown together?
“In our meeting room here the wall is covered with pictures of those great guys and you get almost overwhelmed by the aura. As soon as you walk in you get this atmosphere from the board of previous captains. It is unbelievable when you think of the great names who played for this club.
“And the way professional sport is, it’s not so bad if the training base is not where your home ground is. Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge but train down in Cobham. We play just 40 minutes down the M40.”
Whatever the Welsh play for, it is meaningful. The club, far weaker then than now, made a tremendous effort to stay up two seasons ago and the ferocity of their performance last season in the two-leg promotion final against Bristol, the warm favourites, was close to blood-chilling.
London Welsh can also take advantage of May’s durability and the sporting wisdom of those 18 seasons. His longest injury-enforced absence was five weeks; and then only once. That is truly amazing.
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“One of the reasons I’ve been so lucky with injury is that I am built like a pinball, which I get a fair amount of stick for. But there is a frightening number of big people now running round in the Premiership. I went to the academy day for the Rugby Players’ Association a few weeks ago to try to give advice to those young guys and I cannot believe the size of them.
“Thankfully, the RPA are big on showing them the stats creeping in in terms of career-ending injuries. Hopefully, players are honing their techniques so that there is a level of control they can put into a collision or an attack. If you get that wrong, you get problems.”
He is anxious for the new breed. “We have to stop the young guys just sitting round; they have got to get involved in things outside rugby.”
May has done two university courses and has had a website for years. His next project will be the growth of his site, everything4rugby.com, a project of 5,000 pages and colossal reach aimed at amateur players and clubs. It can provide every aspect of technical and commercial advice, every item of kit ever invented and is already allied to every club in the land.
Regrets? From 18 seasons, very few. May bemoans the fact that such a galaxy of brilliant players raised by Newcastle are now scattered throughout the game. He regrets that he took his early career for granted. “You don’t realise that you should have a feeling of gratitude, because of the opportunity that you have been given.” He will stop playing when he starts disliking training.
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The immediate venture is today’s match. His partnership with the giant Tim Molenaar in midfield will give Exeter plenty to think about. But win or lose, it is only the start of an onerous campaign for Welsh. Just as well that, in the toughest rugby environment, they are led by the model professional.