Tales from the Members’ Bar

No.7 Jon Clarke

You know things are not going your way when you sit out a summer tour for a precautionary operation on a groin problem and go through pre-season training for what everybody reckons could be your breakthrough year only to find that the only break you get is to your ankle half-an-hour into the new season. Such can be the painful realities in the life of a professional rugby player.

It happened and you just have to get on with it. Shame about the tour. It was also something of a punctuation mark in a career that had been proceeding at an impressive rate.

Talking to JC about his biographical entry on the club’s web-site it occurred to me that a Yorkshire lad and Shoguns Academy was not a progression that sprung immediately to mind. Following where his parents worked Jon spent 3 years or so in New Zealand before pitching up in Frome, Somerset for his teenage years. Frome is a small town, it has a rugby club where his best mate at school played and it seemed only natural to go along and give the game a try. It is also where JC still has a load of mates that he goes to see whenever he has some down-time.

Bristol’s academy, during the years Paul Hull was its head coach was a real school of excellence. Three national titles for the Under 21s was testament to that. To be invited to join the academy was the mark of a really promising player.

Although JC came to Saints in his last year of age-group rugby, he effectively went straight into the first team squad. Saints’ academy under Wayne Smith was not organised in the same way it is now and it was quite unusual for youngsters to get much of a look-in. He is impressed with the way that the academy is run now. He sees a group of young men with a terrific attitude, no little skill, a tremendous work ethic and some fearsome pace.

Before his first season was a month old, JC had made his first team debut. Feeling somewhat nervous going out to face Wasps he nabbed an interception try in the 27 – 17 victory. Having played through the England Under 21s Grand Slam that year, everyone will remember his stunning try against Bath – splashing his way the length of Franklins Gardens leaving Bath defenders literally in his wake.

It may not have been the happiest set of circumstances that led to Jon’s introduction to the outside centre berth – Geoff Appleford never played again after the injury he suffered on the IRB Sevens circuit – but he took it in his distinctive stride. It was Carlos Spencer’s first season and it started none too well. After Christmas form had picked up and players were starting to understand. JC was a key figure in the back line that provided the fire-power to go with Carlos’s guile.

Like everyone I have spoken to in this series, Jon is keenly focused on getting the club back into the Guinness Premiership. He knows that there is plenty of improvement to come from himself and the squad as a whole.

While he is contemplating the second half of the season at his grandparents’ home in Sheffield, sitting down with a brew by the fireside, he will be dunking his biscuits. The only proper dunking biscuit is, of course, Rich Tea.

arw

12.12.2007

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