By Whaley Shark
October 4 2011

Since kiss-and-tell stories involving England players seem to be all the rage at the moment (again- do they never learn?), I thought I would follow fashion and join in with my no holds barred account of a night of passion with Jason Robinson. It actually happened a couple of weeks ago but, in the finest traditions, I didn’t want to go public until I had my lawyer, PR and exclusive publication deal all in place. So here you go.

In the course of a wide-ranging couple of hours, Jason gave a fascinating insight into his career in both rugby codes, aspects of his life, and his personality. I’ve tried to summarise the Q&A below-

Why switch codes? Because he had spent almost ten years in RL with Wigan, had won everything there was to win domestically, and international RL was not particularly attractive. Clive Woodward persuaded him that he had a future in RU but he didn’t fancy moving south so, at a time when he was looking for new challenges, he came to Sale, his ‘local’ club, at the time Brian Kennedy, a man with big ambitions, had taken over.

Does RL produce good RU coaches? RL is a fast but simple game whereas RU is more technical. All his RU coaches have been excellent. Both codes share many basic skills but RL has a much longer professional history so RL coaches brought organisation and professionalism, especially in the early days of professional RU. It is odd that all the worst RL defenders have found roles as RU defence coaches, notably Shaun ‘Speedbump’ Edwards and Phil ‘The Turnstile’ Larder.

Did Sale win the GP too soon? No, but the club lacked a follow-up plan. The club’s vision and focus had been entirely on winning the Premiership and it didn’t know how to change and move on. It needed new goals, and to learn how to retain the Premiership. It lacked those, and then the Premiership-winning side broke up.

Who was your best coach? John Monie of Wigan was his first professional RL coach and a profound influence who spent a good deal of time keeping the young JR on the straight and narrow, even to the extent of bringing Jason to live in his house for four months. He also highlighted a teacher (unnamed) who spotted him as a schoolboy and persuaded him to give rugby a go in spite of his non-rugby family background.

Tell us about the 2003 World Cup? The 2003 World Cup was perhaps the hardest thing he’d ever done. The preparation had been long and arduous, but the team had learned to win, even in difficult circumstances. The entire group was very much focused on a team ethic and driven by the need to win. The dominant emotion after the RWC was one of relief that it was all over.

How do you see the 2011 World Cup (this was after only a couple of rounds of group games)? Ireland are very hit-and-miss, Australia difficult to predict. Wales look OK. England are not presently right, but there is a good game in the team at some point. New Zealand are the obvious favourites, but the pressures of historic under-achievement and of playing at home may tell.

How do you see Sale in this Premiership season (this was shortly after the Wasps away win)? The Premiership will be very unpredictable. Sale will play well and could surprise people. Playing with the threat of relegation is very hard and it will make a big difference to performances if we are not near the bottom of the table.

That doesn’t look much for a couple of hours of riveting discussion, but he was very frank and it was interesting to get some insight into the man Jason Robinson. First of all, he’s got quite a sense of humour, very dry, very quick, and Stan, Lisa and Swanny seemed to be favourite targets. On the other hand, talking about the game reveals a very serious Jason too, committed, uncompromising and ultra-competitive. It’s easy to see why he was respected enough on the field to captain club and international sides containing some very fine players indeed.

Well, that’s it. I hope you got something from this. I’ll just conclude by thanking the SSSC for organising the evening, Jason for giving up his time and Scrum30 for passing on a spare ticket.