Tales from the Members’ Bar

No. 15 Tom Smith

I am getting on in years for feeling like a school-kid but this week that feeling assailed me and I loved every minute. The anticipation started to build as soon as I received the email. Tom Smith was to be the player at the media briefing. Wow! A genuine hero! Wow!

I hit the keys of my computer really hard as I did my research. I put it down to over-excitement.

We got through the biographical questions quite quickly. His school in Perthshire was on the shore of Loch Rannoch. Swimming lessons were taken off the ironically named Miami Beach into the distinctly chilly water of the loch. Cross country runs were very much cross-country. No wonder he is tough.

Rannoch School was the poor relation in Perthshire. Tom described turning up to play at Glenalmond as being like the local comprehensive arriving to play at Eton. David Leslie was the first from Glenalmond to captain Scotland a feat matched by Tom, a Rannoch boy, some twenty years later. The pair of them are good friends.

The incident a couple of years ago that led to Tom missing a few games brought to the notice of a wider public the fact that he suffers from epilepsy. What was not quite so widely publicised was the work he does for the Edinburgh-based charity, Enlighten. Being in full-time training does not allow Tom to attend as many fundraising functions as he would like. One day soon he plans to send himself along rather than just autographed kit and memorabilia.

The history out of the way, we began to talk about this season. Rugby and talking rugby definitely appear to be Tom’s passion. Not known to be verbose, he really came alive as we spoke about the way rugby is played in this league and how it differs from the Premiership. Most teams have a big set of forwards and focus on the set piece. Some have really good technique; most have been bigger than us. Technique will win out in the end but if you are giving away a couple of stones to a good practitioner it can take a while to get on top. Without wanting to be derogatory, it has been a fact that Saints’ superior fitness allied to technique has seen them get on top by the end of the game. He turned taciturn when the subject of Lyn Howells’ post match comments came up. I think it fair to say that it would be a point of disagreement that Saints’ forwards were out-muscled and beaten. He had just seen the video so the memory was fresh.

Scrums in the Premiership are different; nobody believes that one pack will be able to shunt the other all around the park. The concentration is on the rest of the tasks forwards have to do. Forwards in other teams would find it difficult to match the tackle counts of Darren Fox and Matt Lord.

An aside here: I had thought that our ploy of a quick throw, usually to Matt Lord at two in the line, was a defensive ploy to protect the rather fragile statistics of some of our throwers. This may be a by-product of an altogether more aggressive ploy. Getting the ball into the line and out again while the line-out is still forming is a way of increasing the pace of the game. Big forwards that like to set themselves and maybe spend a few seconds or so replenishing their oxygen deficit suddenly find that the next phase is twenty metres away. Very cunning, Moriarty.

Along with others in the senior squad, Tom spends time with academy players. While we can all be as impressed as we like with our young props, we have to remember that they take time to mature. They are not usually good enough for the highest levels until their mid twenties. He also has at least one session a month down at Moulton College with the Junior Saints Academy. To have individual attention and advice from such a mentor? Do these young men know they are born?

We were getting to the point where others in the media scrum were wanting some of Tom’s time. I could have gone on and on – at least until Tom had to take his turn in the weights room. One last question…

Bourbon creams!

arw

15.02.2008

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