Keith’s ambition for the club has never diminished. He has always wanted to bring in the best. Many players from other clubs use him a little bit because of this. They know that if they sniff around Keith when they’re coming out of contract, their club will get a bit edgy and may bump up their own money. But Keith is nobody’s fool, and when the game went professional so his attitude to achieving success hardened. ‘I was not that paranoid about winning in the early days,’ he admitted to me. ‘The game was always the thing. I wanted Saints to win, but if we didn’t I’d simply have two pints rather than one. But I began to realize once I took the club over and started raising people’s expectations that I had to deliver.’
Northampton certainly delivered in the 1995–96 season. We finished the season as champions, six points clear of our nearest rivals London Irish, having won all 18 of our games and averaged nearly 50 points a game. It was some record:
Division 2: P18 W18 D0 L0 F867 A203 Pts36
(a) v. London Irish, won 65–32
(h) v. Moseley, won 50–7
(a) v. Nottingham, won 43–7
(h) v. Wakefield, won 23–0
(a) v. Bedford, won 49–17
(h) v. Blackheath, won 69–14
(a) v. Newcastle, won 52–9
(a) v. Waterloo, won 69–3
(h) v. London Scottish, won 54–11
(h) v. London Irish, won 52–24
(h) v. Nottingham, won 35–5
(a) v. Moseley, won 46–16
(h) v. Bedford, won 48–0
(a) v. Blackheath, won 24–10
(h) v. Newcastle, won 26–5
(h) v. Waterloo, won 69–5
(a) v. Wakefield, won 34–21
(a) v. London Scottish, won 59–17
I played in 17 of those games and finished the campaign with nine tries. I could not have been happier, and I eagerly awaited the end-of-season verdict of coach Paul Larkin. When it arrived I was not disappointed:
In my summary last season I stated that with the retirement of Dewi Morris it was possible for you to come to the fore because I wasn’t convinced by Kyran Bracken. I merely emphasized that such an achievement would take a concentrated effort all season, more so since we were in Division Two. So imagine the pride of everyone who had helped you aspire to that pedestal of honour in England v. Western Samoa.
However, the accolade is all yours. You had the mental strength to overcome the psychology involved in shrugging off your lingering hamstring doubts with the help of Phil Pask, but more importantly you had the self-belief and confidence not only to grasp, but to establish yourself as the number one in the country.
If ever there was an Artful Dodger in our side, then it’s you. The Artful Dodger at the base of the scrum or ruck, always chirping, always cheeky, always ready to nick anything and, most irreverently, always prepared to make a fool of his opposite number by sniping at his heels. These are the traits of character that personify an outstanding scrum-half. You have developed them precociously. It is now time for you to review the progress you have made and decide the best way forward.
Inevitably our gameplan makes decisions easy for you. You need to concentrate on the basic skills and I am convinced that you will not neglect the drills. Everything you do should be based upon moving the ball away from the breakdown with speed, bearing in mind that the presentation of the ball is not always what it should be, especially from second-, third- and fourth-phase rucks. The game we play demands your speed of thought; you initiate everything that happens; it is important that you dictate to those around you what you want. The new laws play into your hands and I am sure you will exploit them to their fullest.
It has been a fantastic season for you. It has been an achievement that you will relish and one which you won’t relinquish easily. I feel you have the dogged determination of character to make that England berth yours, right through to the next World Cup [in 1999] and beyond. The important thing is to maintain your focus and allow your self-effacing qualities to help deal with the distractions. You are in good company at the club. The success of the club will help you secure your future. I look forward with great excitement to watching your development.
The ‘England berth’ had been mine throughout the 1996 Five Nations Championship, and my domestic success was replicated on the international front: I ended up with a winner’s medal after we pipped Scotland to the title on points difference. I only wish the campaign had been half as enjoyable as playing for Saints. It was not exactly thrilling stuff, from a spectator’s point of view or from mine: we scored only three tries in our four matches. But given Jack Rowell’s reaction whenever I tried to show any flair, it didn’t come as the greatest surprise to me. ‘Daws,’ he would say, ‘I know you like to do all those sorts of flip passes when you play for Northampton, but you never ever do one of those in an England shirt. Do you understand?’
Paul Grayson has always said to me that the part of my game he appreciates the most is that however the ball comes out I will get it to him. It’s not always pretty. I can be slapping it, kicking it, overheading it, whatever, but I will get the ball to him. Jack didn’t want any of that. Consequently, during the 1996 Five Nations, whenever I saw a bobbling ball I just fell on it or hacked it clear. It went against the grain and it started to eat away at my enjoyment of playing for England.
I actually really like Jack. I get on well with him and have very good banter with him. But as a coach he didn’t coach me. I didn’t go to England and learn anything. He wanted me to play like a robot. He wanted me to pass and kick. No wonder I got dropped in the autumn of 1996. I wasn’t playing well because I wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t enjoying playing for my country. How shocking an admission is that? Having learned to let my rugby do more of my talking for me, I didn’t make a huge fuss about it. In hindsight that was probably a mistake, because I didn’t raise any eyebrows with the way I played, whereas I’d spent all my career with Northampton, Midlands and England A making the odd mistake but making breaks and putting people in holes too. Always doing something to catch the eye. That’s what got me into the England side, yet when I got there I wasn’t allowed to do it. It was very frustrating, and thank God I had Geech coaching me at the club, otherwise I would never have made the Lions squad for South Africa. It was not that I was one of his players, it was that he knew what I could do but wasn’t being allowed to do for England. Take the ‘Solo’ try I scored in the first Test for the 1997 Lions in Cape Town – Jack Rowell would never have sanctioned it. He would have gone mental had I gone it alone from the base of one of his scrums.
Jack’s decision, out of nowhere, to drop me from the England squad in November 1996 shocked me to the core, and it could have had even more serious consequences as it set in motion a sequence of events that left me clinging to life.
England decided to pick Andy Gomarsall for the match at Twickenham against Italy, and decided against explaining their reasoning to me. To this day I have no idea why, and I still feel unhappy about it. I fell out with Les Cusworth, Jack’s second in command, over the way the situation was managed, or rather mismanaged. Les had rung me up to make sure everything was all right and given me all the vibes that I was in the side. Then, literally five minutes before the team was announced, they dropped me from the team and the bench and stuck me in the A team to play Argentina at Franklin’s Gardens. I confronted Les and asked if he could give me a reason why so that I could go away and work on it. ‘I don’t really know,’ he said. ‘It was Jack’s call.’ So I buttonholed Jack. ‘You don’t need to talk to me about that,’ Jack said. ‘Speak to Les.’ I took a deep breath and bit my lip. I was disappointed, gutted even, but I decided to stay calm. What good would me getting angry do? It was a rational