Adam Jones

This man could’ve been processing your driving licence. instead, he won grand slams, tamed the beast and has just finished the lego friends snow resort hot chocolate van – with a little help from Isla.

The box says ‘six to 12 years’ but with daughter Isla at the lower-end of that range, there’s a good chance dad has applied some of his own deft plastic brickwork skills to get the job finished on time. What looks like the foundations for a speedboat (or perhaps another motorhome, quite hard to tell) lies nearby – a job left for another day,  perhaps. Construction projects are always infamously prone to delays. 

Either way, while the two-bedroom flat in Guildford has Adam Jones’s name on the lease, it’s definitely Isla who has done most of the decorating – her artwork covers virtually every surface. “It’s hard now with me up here because she’s growing up so quick,” admits Adam. “She’s a proper person with her own personality,  isn’t she? It’s amazing. She tried rugby tots but was far too stroppy for it. She doesn’t like losing and throws all her toys out of the pram.” And that comes from? “Her mother.”

To Adam, Isla and Nicole (his wife of eight years), are everything. They get up to Guildford from the family home in Merthyr Tydfil  when they can (Nicole works full-time as a teacher) and Adam gets down whenever training at Harlequins allows. 

Talk of Isla prompts many things. The fact she doesn’t get why people sometimes ask dad for photographs (‘are you famous or something?’ ‘No, I just played rugby’); her love of Harlequins; and indeed,  her first crush – the almost as youthful Marcus Smith, just 12 years her senior. It also prompts talk of one of his biggest disappointments. “I wanted to get to 100 caps in Cardiff and walk down the ramp onto the field with my daughter,” he says. “As soon as she was born that’s what I wanted to do. Get to the World Cup  in Cardiff, do that, then done.

“But I didn’t.”

Few who follow Welsh rugby will need reminding of the story, but nonetheless. On 95 caps with the 2015 Rugby World Cup in sight, Wales faced South Africa in Durban. Adam started the game, but with the Welsh pack struggling against their hosts, he was the first to be sacrificed at just 31 minutes. So early was the substitution made, Warren Gatland had to later explain it wasn’t due to injury. The Rugby World Cup came around and he was out again. One more go, a final fitness push for the 2016 Six Nations: “I thought I’d give it a good shot, get as fit as I could, play well for the Blues, and not be a pig over Christmas for a change. I wanted to be at 118kilos, my Lions weight, so that woudn’t be an issue.” It made no difference. He wasn’t in and called time on his international career – five caps short of his ton. Who told you? “Robin McBryde,” he says. “It was him the second time and Gats the first. Which was the annoying bit about the whole thing, claiming that I said Gats didn’t speak to me, because he did. He told me I was out. You know the day the squad’s announced that if you get a phone call you’re out, so when I saw his number I was like ‘oh fuck’. When we spoke I was in shellshock, I was gutted, crying…

“The second time, it was like ‘who’s in?’ and it was [Tomas] Francis, Samson [Lee] and Scott Andrews and I was like ‘so the guy who played second row for the Cardiff Blues because he can’t get near the props is getting in ahead of me’ and he was like ‘yep’, and I’d had enough by then. 

“It was a bit of a bummer really, it was one of those things. It wasn’t a massive regret in that I couldn’t get to sleep because of it, but it affected my family worse than me. My parents in particular, they were devastated. A couple of weeks after my mum died I had a text from Gats saying he’d heard my mum died and he was sorry – it was a lovely text. And the first thing Nic said was ‘your mother would hate the fact he sent that text’. She hated him to that point. I remember my dad saying if she saw him on TV she would blow up. Honestly. Mad. Welsh women: absolutely mental.”

His mum, June Jones was quite the character – as passionate  a rugby fan as any. “I remember one of the Abercrave boys who’d played for Wales U16s moved to Ystrad and there was a lot of hatred,” he recalls. “A group of ladies, including my mother, took all his pictures down in the club, all the jerseys, everything, because they couldn’t stand the fact he’d gone to the local rivals. She was always supporting me and seeing the world at the same time. They even went to places when I wasn’t playing, they went to the Lions 2005 and I didn’t. Both of them were rugby fans. Big fans of mine, obviously, but rugby fans first and foremost.”

Abercrave RFC: his grandfather, uncle and dad, Alwyn, all played for them. “He was a hooker,” he says of his dad, “a lot smaller than me, different type of rugby player – faster than me and a dirty bugger by all accounts. He was captain but as soon as I came along he retired, mum had had enough of it by then.”

As with every town in the Welsh heartland, rugby was king – and came with perks. “If you played for Swansea valley you could wear the tie to school. Same if you played for West Glamorgan, although it was a bit over the top when a boy was picked for Wales with the tie and the blazer,” he laughs. “Playing in the school rugby team did help though, especially with a lot of the more old-school teachers. You wouldn’t exactly walk around like American Football stars or anything, but they may turn a blind eye to a bit of mitching [skiving].” 

He turned out for Abercrave first XV as soon as the rules would allow at 17. “I was big, I trained and everything,” he says. “I was actually a pretty good ball carrier, which died out dramatically when I became professional – but I was quite quick for my size.

“A couple of teams sniffed around a bit. I went to Llandovery for a training session with a big second row called Taxi – we mainly went for the free food though. We trained a  couple of times, but I wasn’t really fit enough.”

Neath would end up as his next stop, aged 19, as part of the under 21s. “We were a rag tag bunch, other sides had U21 internationals, but we had none. Steve Tandy was captain but basically we were the dregs with a few gems. We managed to finish fourth in that first year, then win the cup and finish second. I remember Lyn Jones said to me if I lost a bit of weight he’d take a look.” 

Not wanting to wait, his parents offered to support him financially if Lyn would allow him to train. “They figured with my brother going to university doing whatever he was doing, this was my version of it. It would be a bonus if I got to play a game for the first team, but I actually ended up playing a few.”

Helping to pay his way during that first year with a job making concrete slabs, he was signed full-time by Neath. Which was lucky as the alternative was far less attractive. “I had been offered a job at the DVLA in Swansea before I got the contract, I had no idea in life really.”

What would you be doing at the DVLA? “No idea, whatever they do there I guess. I don’t really know to be honest, making license plate numbers I guess.”

School hadn’t been high on the list of priorities for a young Adam. “I couldn’t be arsed really,” he admits. “It’s annoying  looking back that I didn’t put more into it. When I applied myself I did okay. I ended up with two GCSEs, and I was like ‘oh fucking hell’ and I was so upset but I didn’t do the work. One time we had the morning off so we went to my mate’s house and drank vodka and got pissed before an exam. We had to drag in one mate and put him up in the seat because he was that smashed.” 

Leading a more sensible life in the world of professional rugby, when he did veer from the path his mum and dad were there. “A week before the Celtic League final we played Ebbw Vale and I got absolutely smashed and didn’t get in until seven in the morning – my dad bollocked me. He said: ‘you’ve literally got the biggest game of your life next week at the Millennium Stadium against Cardiff and you’re out until seven’. It was only when I told him I was  with Rowland Phillips, one of the coaches, that him and mum eased up a bit.”

Like many involved in Welsh rugby in the early days of professionalism, there’s been plenty of interesting times in the tighthead prop’s career. None more so than the formation of the Ospreys. “I remember my dad showing me the Western Mail and it said there was going to be a development team in North Wales and myself and Paul James were bandied   as going up there. I thought ‘fucking hell I don’t know if I want to go and live in Wrexham’. And then, bang, [David] Moffett  [WRU Group Chief Executive] came in and it all changed. I remember driving down the M4 and Lyn Jones rung me and was like ‘oh look, you’ve heard about all the stuff going on , well we’re joining Swansea and we want to keep you, so this is what we’re offering’, which was substantially more than I was on at the time. My first contract at the regions was about £35k and at Neath I was on £15k so it was quite a jump. I bit his arm off.”

Was it a surprise? “I think we knew deep down, we weren’t strong enough to compete when the shit hit the fan. We played Leicester in the beginning of 2003 and they brought [Josh] Kronfeld, Lewis Moody and George Chuter off the bench and we were like ‘how can we compete with this?’ We barely had a squad of 25 and it was the same boys week-in, week-out.”

The official launch of the new era wasn’t perhaps the slickest. “It was a bit of a shambles, bit of a shit-show, it was in Revolution in Swansea, a vodka bar. The shirt was black for fuck’s sake and it had the Maltese cross! Then it had an osprey bird, which had nothing to do with Swansea other than they flew around the place. And we played a lot of the big games at the Gnoll. You can see why Swansea fans would be pissed off. We didn’t have a great first year, but we more than anyone benefited from the Celtic Warriors’ demise because they had a good team and some good players. We were training with Wales when that happened and those boys were being taken into a room and told who wants them. I remember thinking ‘who are we going to get?’ and we ended up with Sonny Parker, which I was delighted with. Brent Cockbain – delighted. I didn’t know a  great deal about Ryan Jones at the time aside from the fact that he was always fucking injured. We had a good group of players though and made some good signings too.”

A year previous, he’d made his Welsh debut (against England). Not before serving what was effectively the precursor to England rugby’s ‘apprenticeship’ system. “I got a letter inviting me to a Welsh training session. I was shitting myself. I only knew the Neath boys, but it was interesting. There was ruck technique, a little bit on the scrum machine and then a quiz on what do you do in different scenarios with Scott Johnson and Steve Hansen. For some reason I mainly remember that the mini microwavable pizzas were the snacks, the little pepperoni ones.

“Then I got invited back for the Six Nations but I wasn’t in the squad. I suppose I was like an apprentice, I was just a bag holder. It was a bit weird because it was called Jail of Glamorgan  [as opposed to Vale of Glamorgan] back then because the players had rooms and were stuck there all the time. I’d be up there during the week until they basically left to go and play for Wales. When training finished at noon, you’d have lunch and then training wouldn’t be until 3.30 so whereas everyone else went back to the room and had a snooze, I was literally stuck in the bar, sat on the floor reading. Andrew Hore made me sit on a bike for an hour sometimes, for a fat burning session – that killed a bit of time. I don’t know if Steve was thinking of taking  me to the World Cup  or whether it was just a chance to get me fitter.”

Touring New Zealand in 2003 with Wales may not have given him any Test caps,  but it did see him meet his future coach. “I didn’t make the squad so I just trained in New Zealand,” he explains. “The night before the Test – the one where Charv got knocked out by JC (Jerry Collins ) – me, Pops (Alix Popham) and Matthew Watkins and a few of the boys went out for a few beers and got a bit smashed. We ended up in a burger bar at two in the morning and Gats was there. I went up to him and asked if he wanted to sign me for Wasps. He always says he didn’t remember it – he was as drunk as me.”

His debut came months later, against a  propping legend. “I came on at about 66 minutes, quite a few points down , and was playing against Jason Leonard and he was a childhood hero.”

An English idol? “I am a bit of a fan sometimes,” he admits. “I wish I was more like Mike Phillips sometimes, and his ‘fuck ‘em’ kind of thing. I remember playing against Bath and they had Dan Lyle, Danny Grewcock and Mike Catt and all these guys pre-season and I was like, ‘fucking hell this is ridiculous’. At one point Mike gave me a bollocking saying I respected them too much. I was a bit too awestruck, so he had a point. It’s the only bit of advice he ever gave me.”

With the Ospreys, along with the likes of Jerry Collins, Marty Holah, Justin Marshall, both Adam and his scrum-half advisor cut it up in the league, winning four titles. It was in Europe that perhaps the side failed to reach its potential. “Yeah , we should’ve done better,” he says. “We lost to Biarritz, who were good at the time, but we could’ve beat them out there in San Sebastian, so it was frustrating. We won the league though and it’s a tough, hard league to win. 

“Probably one thing that really bugs me here is how the league back home is perceived by the players. It really annoyed me once when Harlequins were  playing Edinburgh away and we were analysing it. Our scrumhalf, who’s a ref now, Karl Dickson, was commenting on their scrum and said: ‘they’ve got a shithouse scrum’. I looked at Graham Rowntree who was next to me and said ‘they’ve got Dickinson 30 caps for Scotland, Ross Ford, Lion and 100 caps, and WP Nel is probably the best tighthead in the country right now! Where do they get these thoughts from? It’s always the same, but it really bugs me. I’m happy to tell anyone at Harlequins that we came down to Harlequins and put 40 points on them at the Stoop, and they came to Swansea and we stuffed them down there too.”

There were European highlights though. “Beating Leicester [in 2010, 17-12] was probably the best win. We dominated them up front and it was the front five that stuck in my mind. We got so much shit about the galacticos but the front five that day was all local. Me, Hibbs [Richard Hibbard], [Paul] James, Alun Wyn [Jones] and JT (Jonathan Thomas). It should’ve put paid to the myth as we’d all come through the system. It was perhaps more disappointing we couldn’t properly shove it down their throat because we didn’t go as far as we could have. That was the most annoying thing.”

One character prominent at the time was Gavin Henson. “Gav was brilliant,” says Adam, “but he’s a fucking idiot when he’s pissed sometimes. You can tell with Gav if he’s been a pain in the arse on a night out, because he’d be coming down for breakfast and having to say sorry to someone in the Welsh squad. He was always the same, a talented fuck, but how he’s represented in the press is nothing like he is. Ninety per cent he’s a good fella, then the ten per cent is when he gets pissed.”

Beyond both club and country however was the Lions. Two tours and perhaps most significant for him the loss in South Africa rather than the win in Australia. “I only found out a year or so ago how much that Lions tour meant to my family,” he says. “A friend of mine was sat in the crowd next to my parents and when the first scrum happened my dad had gone white and was shaking – he was so nervous because of what happened with the Beast [with Phil Vickery] beforehand. The whole crowd before the first scrum was like, ooh, because they were expecting something huge. As it turned  out, we won a penalty from it, but he was so nervous he couldn’t control his emotions. I knew they took criticism to their hearts, but didn’t realise they got that nervous. You don’t just want to go on a Lions tour, you want to play a Test and have an impact and I think I did in 2009 and 2013.”

Skipping past the abrupt end to his international career and his year with the Blues, we’re pretty much up to date. Now in his third year with Harlequins, who he joined as player-coach in 2015, the first part of his job title is slowly fading out. Something prompted when he was unceremoniously dumped from the players’ Whatsapp group. A further hint that he’s now definitely considered a coach rather than player-coach, came with the continued absence of his sometime housemate, Joe Marler. “Yeah , he did stay here sometimes but doesn’t do it very often now, because I’m coach,” he laughs. “He used to sleep in my daughter’s bedroom when she wasn’t there.  He’s a good fella, he’s a bright bloke and has a lot more to him than he likes to show. He’s been brilliant with me. 

“We were in San Francisco when I found out my mother had died and we were rooming and he was amazing . He did everything for me. He took me for a Wendy’s, scrambled around packing my case, finding JK [John Kingston], getting me sleeping tablets for my flight, just  doing whatever he could. He  even took himself off to give me some time. I won’t have a bad word said about him. Whenever anyone says,  ‘he’s a prick’, I’ll stick up for him 100 per cent. He’s always got money in the bank with me.”

Do you miss playing? “Nic says I do, but I don’t. 

“I played Exeter in March and I was ready to come off after quarter of an hour. It was that bad. Wig and Nick knew how I was feeling at half time because they were laughing. I was like give me five minutes…

“I just coach now, I’ve not trained for a few  months. Graham Rowntree is massive into his Wattbiking so he tries to get me on the bike – he’s given me a pair of shoes for it.”

So you keep fit then? “I do the biking yeah but it’s the diet isn’t it? It’s all very well going on the bike for 45 minutes, but if you then go and eat a box of chocolates or biscuits afterwards... Now I’m not playing, I don’t have the motivation, although I think I need to think about it as Nic has started complaining about the weight because of my breathing.”

His battle with weight has been ongoing throughout his career. “There was one point when it was a joke, I was 23 stone,” he admits. “I remember looking at photographs from my cousin’s  wedding and I had this massive swollen face – pretty much like it is now. 

Going full circle, with family so prominent in every aspect of his rugby life, every high and low always matched with a shared family moment, we return again to when Isla will be able to finish construction of the second motorhome/boat thing. “It’s usually my day off today , so if I wasn’t doing this, I’d have gone back last night. I’d have spent the day doing the school runs and then leave at 4am to be back here for 6am and training. I get to see them every week.

“We’ll all be together at some point though, it’s only because I keep signing one-year deals that we’re not together. Three years it is now and I’m missing out on stuff I don’t need to miss out on.”

Words by: Alex Mead

Pictures by: Tom Watkins

This extract was taken from issue 2 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.