By Mr Bow Jangles
December 9 2003

Bow chats to Matt Styles about his playing days, his beginnings & aspirations, then talk turns to man breasts, the goonies & chatting to gorillas! btw Matt - the presenters of Eureka are Kate Heavenor & Mohini Sule

Personal Stats

Name: Matt Stephen John Styles

Age: 21

Date of Birth: 27/1/82

Place of Birth: South London

Nickname: The Fury!

Position: Back Row/2^nd Row

Weight: 16st 10Ibs

Height: 6’5

Playing Career

Bristol Shoguns (2000 - present)

1^st XV Apps: 8 (+ 5 sub) 1 try

League Apps: 4 (+ 3 sub) 1 try

United Apps: 10 (+ 1 sub)

U21 Apps: 26 (+ 11 sub) 9 tries

Total: 48 (+ 20 sub) 11 tries

^1st XV debut: 22/12/02 v Rotherham H (Powergen Cup, lost 24 - 19)

League debut: 14/10/03 v Pertemp Bees H (lost 45 – 11)

Club debut: 21/10/00 v London Irish H (won 33 – 13) – came on as replacement for Rik Martin-Redman

Representative

ENG U18, 19, 21a

Background

Family

Dad: Martin = Project Manager

Mum: Anne = Tax Officer

Brother: Ben = Southampton University: Medicine

Girlfriend: Hannah = Teacher Training

Schools/Colleges

§ Rainham Mark Grammar School

§ UWE – Psychology

Rugby Clubs

§ Sittingbourne RFC

§ Ashford RFC

§ Sevenoakes RFC

Questions

Bow: What inspires you to play rugby?

Matt: “I love the game, passing, running with the ball, making tackles, all the boys being together…I like the fact it’s a team sport. I first took up rugby because my dad played rugby, its what we do in my family! He never played to a great standard…but he just loved playing. I grew up around rugby clubs, watching him play. He was a back row too originally but when I was around he had moved to prop for good!!”

Bow: Did you always want to be a rugby player?

Matt: “I was never good enough at anything else and to be honest rugby took up all my time, I never put that much effort into anything else. It was always going to be rugby I played.”

Bow: Did you know from an early age that you were going to be good at it?

Matt: “Yes, I was lucky really because I happened to be a lot bigger than anyone else when I was younger. I guess I was also lucky that my dad made me focus on the skills as well though, its helped since I have got older and I am now not quite so big as everyone else!”

Bow: Was your dad a good player in his own right?

Matt: “Yea, he was alright….he really knew the game. He never played at a massively high level, he played around Kent clubs all his career, but he really analysed the game and definitely knows what he is talking about with regards rugby.”

Bow: Who do you look up to at the club?

Matt: “Obviously Hilts has been the one this year. He has been really useful. He isn’t the sort of player to scream and shout at you on the pitch, he says things when they are needed. He has said to us that he is not that used to being the Captain, but he’s always got very good advice for you. He also keeps his head on the pitch so if there is something technical going wrong he knows about it straight away, and can help you out. Of course he has also been there and done it at the highest level so he knows exactly what works and what doesn’t.”

Bow: Out of interest who did you look up to at the club last season?

Matt: “Definitely Arch, he was massive, a real influence. He was very vocal and would always give you advice if you went and asked him. That’s just what he was like really.”

Bow: Who do you think is the best in your position in England? And in the world?

Matt: “In England, no.8 is Laurence Dallaglio, but in the back row overall I would say Richard Hill, quite easily….he is one of the best players in the world. In the rest of the world probably Richie McCaw the New Zealander.”

Bow: Who would you like to meet in world rugby?

Matt: “I have always wanted to play against Jonah Lomu, just to test yourself against the guy, it would be immense! I’d like to play with Richard Hill because he does all the unseen work and always gives 110% without question. I’d like to know what makes him tick.”

Bow: What are your aspirations in rugby?

Matt: “Short term I just want to be playing regularly for Bristol and be the best person I can be. I want to improve my game week-on-week, month-on-month. Long term of course I would love to go all the way, play for England and play for the Lions. Simply, I just want to know that when I retire I have given it my all and that I couldn’t have done any better.”

Bow: Do you set yourself short-term targets?

Matt: “Yea I give myself a ladder to climb and I am moving up that slowly at the moment. Last season I set the target of getting onto the bench for the first team and I managed to get game time as well which was a real bonus. This year with things being different I want to be a regular….I don’t want to just get game time, I want to be a regular in the first team, so that’s my goal for this year.”

Bow: Who is the worst and best-dressed player in the squad?

Matt: “Dodge is pretty well dressed, I’ll give him that! He’s a good-dressed boy!! Who’s the worse dressed? Hmmm….I bet everyone said Hunty didn’t they? (yes – Bow)….well it’s a shame for the lad, but yea he probably is!!! I’d like to say someone else but I don’t think I can! You know? You’d like to say someone who’s really extravagant but hasn’t got a clue, but Hunty just wears dab clothes!”

Bow: Who’s the joker in the squad?

Matt: “Hobbo…but in a good way!”

Bow: and the quietest?

Matt: “Mike Griffiths is pretty quiet. A lot of the boys are quite quiet when they aren’t training though…like Hunty can be quiet off the pitch but he can be pretty vocal in training too.”

Bow: Who’s been coping the most banter in the squad in the last week?

Matt: “It’s always Hooky! Always, for many different things!! Mind you, he has started chirping back now so it might not be him for long. He has started calling Hodgey ‘sloth’, as in sloth from the goonies!!! Hooky always gets it though for having man-breasts mainly, but he is such a nice guy that he gets away with it. We all call him ‘Texas Pete’!”

Bow: What is different this year from last year about Bristol?

Matt: “Everybody seems to be working together. It was hard for me last year just coming in because I didn’t have any point of reference really, but this year everyone seems to be working towards the same thing….the team playing better. That is really reflected in the guys who aren’t involved on the weekend…if they are not selected or injured they are all working their arse off to get back involved…and they are very supportive of those who are selected. Its what is so good about the club…it’s infectious!!”

Bow: Other than Richard Hill, who would you most like to be coached by in world rugby?

Matt: “Hully has been the biggest coach I have worked with so far (not including RH), and I haven’t got a bad word to say about him…he was brilliant. He knew exactly how to get the best out of the players he had. I also got the chance to work with Lawrie Mains for a bit as well which was lucky. Pete Thorburn sent myself, Hully and Rik Martin-Redman out to a training camp in New Zealand the summer before last. Hully was there on a coaching course and me and Rik on a player’s course that was run at the same time. It was an international rugby academy, although as this was the first one it was mainly full of kiwis. Getting selected for that was a real honour especially coming from the first team coach at the time (Pete Thorburn), although Hully obviously had a say in it too. I was an U20 then and hadn’t trained much at all with the 1^st team. Lawrie Mains ran the coaching side of things and Murray Mexted ran the actual course.”

Bow: Do you think you came back a better player from the course?

Matt: “Yea…it was hard for me because I was still very unfit as I had only come back from a broken leg the week before we flew out! It was the first heavy sessions I had done and I needed extra physio while I was there too. So it was hard to come through as an athlete or a sportsman, but as a rugby player…the mental side of the game it was outstanding…absolutely brilliant. That was essentially what it was for as well as being a primer for life as a professional rugby player. We trained 3 times per day and woke up at 6am to do our fitness before doing two rugby sessions. They also make a real effort to get the best coaches. They got Grant Fox in for the kicking and backs play, Graham Lowe in, Murray Pierce and David Campese was on one of them. That was there idea…to get the best coaches and the best players to come and coach at the academy and make it one of the best there is (there is one in Natal as well). I was out there for almost a month and made a lot of friends out there that I am still in contact with now. Hully was even thinking of trying to poach a few of the New Zealand U21 players!!!”

Bow: What irritates you most about rugby?

Matt: “Sometimes when you are not selected and you don’t know why or you can’t understand the decision. That’s hard. Being injured though has to be the most irritating thing.”

Bow: What would you change about rugby?

Matt: “I’d make the weather good all the time! I hate playing in bad weather when the pitch is muddy, you can’t run and it just turns into a big brawl or a fight! I’d rather play rugby than have a box! I guess that can be a plus though…have a fight and a game of rugby at the same time!!!”

Bow: What do you think of the City of Bristol?

Matt: “I have loved Bristol ever since I moved here…its brilliant. I know a lot of people who have left and still keep going on about how good it is. I have loved all the time I have had here…I have never wanted to go anywhere else…although the traffic is annoying!! I do like the people though.”

Bow: What about the fans?

Matt: “Fantastic! The best fans in the world! The support they have given us this year is absolutely unbelievable…it’s been a real help to us as players.”

Bow: If you weren’t a rugby player what would you be doing?

Matt: “I have thought about that a little bit. I thought about firefighting or teaching, I used to do guitar teaching when I was young, or music teaching/tutoring. Or I could be making games for kids!! I would finish off my psychology degree first of all I expect. I really enjoyed that, but I couldn’t cope with it and rugby…it became too diluted. I did enjoy it though, especially animal behaviours. I did a case study on how gorillas use language, body language, sign language and grunting! They actually have a lot of different sounds they can make and they can be taught basic sign language.”

Bow: Do you have any pre/post match rituals?

Matt: “It’s more a case of what I don’t have. I do loads! I am trying to wean myself off them though. I have to prepare the same way before every match, put my kit on a certain way, sit in the same seat…I guess I am pretty superstitious!”

Bow: What do you enjoy most about being a rugby player?

Matt: “The fact that you are doing a job that you love all of the time. Even when you have had a hard session smashing each other up and it is pissing with rain, you come in and think that you could be doing job you really hate even covered in mud and full of aches and pains and cuts…its still a job you love. That’s what gets you through otherwise you would have loads to moan about.”

Bow: What would you say your strengths and weaknesses are as a player?

Matt: “My support play is good, I think I am a decent attacker. I am also quite vocal on the pitch although I haven’t been as much as I used to be. Maybe I am concentrating too hard this year, because being vocal is the way I play usually. Or it could be that I am better at saying decent things now rather than just jabbering on!!

My weaknesses are probably to do with the dirty side of the game, although I am putting a lot of effort into weaning myself onto it. I mean things like smashing rucks etc.. That’s what I work on most. I enjoy the challenge of trying to steal the ball and tackling though.”

Bow: What about strengths and weaknesses as a person?

Matt: “ That’s a difficult question….my strengths are probably that I am pretty confident, I am loyal. As far as weaknesses go I guess I am a bit of a manic-depressive! I am also easily bored, that is probably my biggest weakness.”

Bow: How do you relax away from rugby?

Matt: “I walk the dog, I play computer games (PS2) and have almost completed Madden (Bow: Our own budding Johnno is into his NFL).”

Bow: What are your thoughts on what happened last season with the proposed move to Oxford and the merger with B*th?

Matt: “It really got you down, you started to wonder if you really wanted to be playing rugby when all that was going on. You never knew who to trust really, however much trust or belief you had in the people above you to do the right thing you were never really sure. Pete Thorburn and Jimmy Grant, I thought they were good guys, but there always seemed to be an unseen factor that kept you worrying. A lot or people were passing the buck at that time, Malcolm was obviously dealt the biggest blow but I am sure he was not the only one in the wrong.

If either of the deals had gone through it would have been a real shame for Bristol. It would have been a terrible idea to take a huge rugby club like this away from such a massive supporter base and a City full of rugby people. Bristol Rugby would have disappeared…they’d have had to start again from the bottom. We have seen this year from the crowds and from the type of people supporting us what a top rugby club this is.”

Bow: “Would you consider coaching of managing when you retire?

Matt: “Yes definitely as I like to teach anyway. I am quite patient. I would love to get some coaching badges, I have tried before but just had to many commitments. I like doing the coaching at schools with the Community department. Some of the boys aren’t keen on it but I love it!”

Bow: What do you think of the new owners?

Matt: “I don’t know a lot about them at the moment apart from the fact that they are at least rugby fans which is a good thing. I know Rob Clilverd who was the U19s coach pretty well, he’s a good guy. I should imagine most of the decisions he would make would be in the best interests of the club and not just to cut pennies.”

Bow: What do you think Bristol’s prospects are this season?

Matt: “Well when we started off we would love to have said promotion or top three. Obviously after a month it would have been just to survive and get better. Now we are a lot more confident that we won’t be caught up in a relegation battle, we are getting better and getting some good results. We would look now at high, mid-table…maybe even higher than that. There are not many teams that you would say are better than us at our best. Obviously promotion is now completely out of the question now though. We learnt a lot from the London Welsh game, you can’t just turn up and expect to play well. We talked ourselves up s the favourites even though we were away and we expected to pick up a win at least and maybe with a bonus point. Wakefield this week we knew we would have to work 110% to come away with any points at all….that’s how we should have played against London Welsh too.”

Bow: What persuaded you to resign for Bristol in the summer…did you have any other offers?

Matt: “Yea I had offers. I basically gave up money but not opportunity to stay with Bristol. I also liked the club and didn’t want to go anywhere in the first place, the club was always going to still be professional in their outlook on rugby, not necessarily in paying every player, a decent, dedicated club. I never really wanted to go anywhere else and that has turned out well.”

Bow: It sounds like money wasn’t really the issue for you…what do you think when you look at Rob Higgitt’s situation (he is not currently being paid by the club)?

Matt: “The great thing about Rob is he never mentions it, he just works his arse off all the time. In that respect he does inspire me, yea. However I would say there is not a player in the side who hasn’t given up something to come here. We have all gained from that…and when I say gained I mean a lot more than just a few extra pennies in the bank. A lot of us want to try and buy a house and we can’t at the moment, but we will be able to in time and at the moment we are gaining a lot more by staying with Bristol. We are very lucky to have Hilly and Haagy who are constantly pushing the side to improve.”

Bow: What is your funniest moment in rugby?

Matt: “Probably a video I saw years after the event of Keith James the physio tackling Chris Sheasby off the pitch!! That’s was interesting and going back a few years!! He was treating a player on the pitch and was running off head down and collided with Sheasby and they both ended up in a heap on the floor!”

Bow: and your darkest?

Matt: “Last season at London Irish. I was on the bench. It was worse than breaking my leg.”

Bow: Who do you owe most to for your career?

Matt: “My dad and Hully. I wouldn’t be doing all this if it wasn’t for my dad and over the last few years Hully has had a massive influence on me. He’s outstanding. I have been lucky to have had good coaches throughout my career really.”

Bow: Who has been the surprise package so far?

Matt: “Rob Higgitt. We all knew how good he was playing U21s with him. Owen Evans as well. The twins Rob and Owen.”

Bow: The twins?

Matt: “They have always been together ever since they were young. They also come from the same little village in North Wales. They are both Rithin boys! The Rithin twins!!”

Bow: Where do you think the improvement in the team performances has come from in recent weeks?

Matt: “We are now over the initial shock of how tough this league is and how tough senior rugby is for most of the squad. We have worked so hard in training to improve on the errors we have made and front up to teams as much as possible. I also think as a younger player you always expect it to fall into place if you put the effort in during the week, but that doesn’t work…you have to work a lot harder than that. You don’t realise how hard you can work until you come into senior rugby. Its not that you don’t give 100% its just that you have to learn that you can give more than that!”

Bow: What did you and the team take out of the Wasps game?

Matt: “Personally I think I was much better defensively. I made a lot of tackles that I would normally make….but they were better quality tackles. As a team we learnt that when we play well, we do play very well. There is no better team to gage yourself against than Wasps at the moment…we just have to learn to keep it going for 80 minutes and not just half-hour spells like Wasps. If we learn from that we can beat Worcester this weekend.”

Bow: So can we beat Worcester this weekend?

Matt: Yes we can. Whether we will or not is another matter. Our fitness will be key. The coaching staff have been very clever and done a lot of work on our size and bulk, which is obviously needed at our age. We now need to concentrate more on fitness…as you can guess you cannot really work on both at the same time! However, we are fit enough to take on teams in this league. Our training for the match hasn’t changed from the training for previous matches which is good as it is putting the onus on us…which is what the coaches are looking for…looking at what we can do and not just on how to stop the opposition.”

Bow: Who’s your best friend at the club?

Matt: “Marko and Morgs I guess. Most of the guys I have been through the U21s with aswell like Ollie Kohn and Hunty.”

Bow: Did the recent news that we were looking to sign a Samoan unsettle you?

Matt: “No, because we didn’t hear about it until it had pretty much fallen through. We knew Hilly was looking and we can understand that, but we think we are good enough obviously and can do the job without any new back-row signings. We can at least understand why he wants to and his reasonings behind it.”

Bow: What are your thoughts on the World Cup?

Matt: “Almost unbelievable that they managed to pull it out, especially as they were probably favourites. I watched it at home with my girlfriend and her mum. I watched every England game and every one of the knockouts, it wasn’t possible to watch all the group games which was a shame. I have to say though it was a really good World Cup, really well organised, well run and you could see that a lot of teams have really improved.”

Fans Questions

Znoober: If you could have one superpower what would it be?

Matt: “X-Ray vision to see through clothes!! How good would that be! Or to be able to stop time and be able to move people about!!”

Znoober: Describe B*th rugby in 3 words?

Matt: “I don’t bother wasting my thoughts on them!”

Chris d: Is the quality of the opposition what was expected?

Matt: “I don’t think we thought they would be as good as they are. We were very naive in that sense. That would probably be different if you asked some of the more experienced players like Hawks and Hilts. It took us by surprise, especially the physical side.”

TP: How much can you bench press?