Richard Hibbard

Amid the smoke-billowing industrial landscape of Port Talbot, where the core ingredients of steel are blasted at 1,200°C to produce five million tonnes of the hard stuff every year, a ‘mother’s boy’ called Richard Hibbard was kicked into shape.

You don’t have to live in Port Talbot, or even Wales for that matter, to be familiar with it. As the M4 snakes its way along the south Wales coastline, it’s there when you turn the corner just past Bridgend. From dock to valley, coast to country, it’s a landscape full of tightly packed rows of houses, a skyline punctuated with giant, smoking chimneys, rugby posts poking up past the flyover and a vision of industry that seems of a different age. 

“It means home,” says Richard Hibbard, when he talks of that first sight of Port Talbot as you arrive from the east. “The Pyle turn as you come around the bend, you see the flame, and you know you’re home. I was explaining to someone the other day, it looks ugly to some people, but I still find it amazing. It’s an ugly amazing place in there, it’s unreal.”

He’s talking both of the town in which he grew up and the Tata Steelworks that is the big, clunking, fire-breathing heart of the town, employing some 4,000 people. “It’s scary, that’s the only way to explain it,” he says of the steelworks. “I did a photoshoot in there and we were in front of the big blast furnace and the smelting pots – you can feel the heat miles away.

“My three brothers work in there, and all my mates do too, it’s nuts,” he says. “One of them [the brothers] works for Tata, in the second part where the slabs come through – he does tell me what he does, but it’s all technical stuff. 

“The other two are contractors, one is cleaning the slabs before the furnace, the other does a bit of everything.

“I grew up much closer to it,” he says, as we sit in his garden at the top of a very steep drive on the mountain side of the M4. Trees cover the view of the greying chimney stacks, but where the slightly easier-on-the-eye section of the coastline begins, nothing interrupts his view. “Those trees fell down overnight,” he laughs. “All this derelict land,” he continues, pointing at the land we can see, which seems to be sparsely filled, “used to be BP Chemicals , so when we grew up, we were stuck in the middle of two massive industries.

“Everybody in Port Talbot used to work there, boys would even be in there training with their dads. It’s a way of life, it’s always on death’s door, mind, with a lack of money or something, but it’s the heartbeat of the town.

“It’s not just the business itself, but it’s the local businesses that the workers use,” explains Richard. “I’ve got a café down there and we get tonnes of workers in there. Within two people you’ve got a connection with that place.” 

Both his parents are now gone, but with his brothers and his wife Louise’s family [Louise also runs their Hideout Café in the town], the connections still run deep, not to mention his memories. “I’m the youngest of four boys, mum brought us up on her own,” he says, repeating the toughest aspect of his mum’s  job, “four boys – it was tough,” he adds. 

“I was the youngest, with my eldest brother ten years older, then eight years, then six – I was the baby.  My eldest brother [Nicholas] went into the army, my middle one [Ginger] – he always loved work, so he stayed around and then the one above me, Dan, went into the army .”

Who had the most influence? “They all did,” he says. “They all toughened me up with good old kickings when I was a kid. They used to hate how mother mothered me, I was mother’s boy.

“It was nuts, looking back,” he says. “Four boys, hats off to her, she never had much money. I remember shopping day on Tuesday when she had money, she’d come home and we were like locusts. None of us were small boys, so there was no food left by Friday. 

“We never really wanted for anything, she did everything, she’d take me and my mates on bike rides – there’d be six or seven of us following her – or fishing or whatever. We never lacked for boys’ things to do. She was brilliant that way, although I’m sure she always wanted a girl, mind.

“We lived in one house for most of the time and my brother Ginger actually bought the old house back and he’s living there still.”

Had rugby not come along, Richard would probably have followed his brothers in the well-trodden route through the gates of the steelworks. “If I hadn’t made it, I probably would have eventually signed up following those two,” he admits. 

Just as the steelworks are synonymous with the area, so too is rugby. The posts of both Aberavon and Richard’s own club Taibach can be seen from the motorway. “In Port Talbot alone you’ve got Aberavon Green Stars, Aberavon Naval Club, Aberavon Quins, Taibach, Cwmavon, Baglan, Tonmawr – they were just the local teams and I’ve probably forgotten a few. It’s a big traditional rugby town, you weren’t allowed a football in our school, it’d get punctured if you took one in.”

Struggling with education, like many, rugby gave him a nudge in the right direction. “I was a bit of a naughty kid, but rugby sort of puts you on the right path, otherwise you don’t survive in that sort of environment. The boys I played with when I was growing up, I’m still best mates with, even when I played for Ospreys, I’d come home and go out with my mates.”

As he approached his later teens and as part of a strong youth side at Taibach, he started taking rugby seriously. “I still wanted to go out [but not drink],” he explains, “so I started working the door, so I was out but not technically out, which was fun. I think the only person I chucked out in my entire life was my best mate.”

Such restraint helped earn him a contract with Swansea. “It was the year they went pop,” he explains. “I got a semi-pro contract with Swansea and then in January time, Ospreys offered me a contract. Lyn [Jones] was coach, and I’d been a prop through youth but tried to get into the back row and I remember him saying to me ‘you can either be an average back row or we can move you to hooker and you can be a good hooker’.

“He’s so, so clever,” says Richard of his former coach, now in charge of Russia. “He sees things you couldn’t – the way he looks at it, the little cheats he taught you. I think he found it hard man-managing, he got it wrong with some people, but you talk to everyone and they have a soft spot for him as he was very good at what he did.”

Alternative career options had already been explored. “I was working as a teaching assistant in a naughty school,” he says, “you know where they get sent when they get expelled out of a normal school, they’re sent to us and see if they can integrate back, or stay with us. The headmaster there was great, a big rugby fan , so if I needed to train… and if not that, I always liked the idea of the army.”

He may not have followed his brothers’ career path, but even when professional, he stayed close to home. At a time when the regions were settling down – Ospreys had an influx of Celtic Warriors at the end of his first season – Richard decided to keep himself to himself. “I was naïve to it all, I didn’t embrace it as much as I should have,” he admits. “The training pitch is four minutes away from here, so I didn’t immerse myself. I moved out [of home] young, lived in a flat not far from where I grew up, moved close to my brother, and then I met my wife and we got a different place together. Even if I went out with the Ospreys, I’d bring two or three of my mates with me.”

With Wales, he earned a first cap under Gareth Jenkins on a tour to Argentina. “What an absolute legend,” he says of the former Scarlets man. “But he seemed to be five years too late, his personality and his charisma, you just wanted to play for him. He was a superb bloke but the game was just going over the threshold and times were changing. But he was class.” 

For Ospreys, the captain Barry Williams was first choice, meaning Richard would play twenty minutes for his region on a Friday, then turn out for Swansea on the Saturday. “Ospreys was mad,” he says. “We were three deep in the same position with internationals. The quality. The team was incredible though: the Filos [Tiatia], Jerrys [Collins], the [Justin] Marshalls, it wasn’t just on the pitch but what they brought off the pitch as well, they were bringing the boys through, teaching sub-cultures, just how to be a good bloke really and if you step out of line... 

“I hung around with Adam [Jones], Duncan [Jones], Paul James, and I’m still best mates with them now . Then there were all the superstars like the Hookies [James] and [Mike] Phillips, [Lee] Byrnies, they were different creatures.”

Like anyone you interview from the era, you question why the side never conquered Europe in the way they did the Celtic League – he puts it down to a number of things, but timing was key. “If anything, our pack at the time was just a couple of years off it, age-wise,” he says, “that back line with that pack, a few years later, it would have been just nuts. It felt like we were two years too early. Another season and it felt like we would have cracked it.

“The cohesion was great, there were the party animals but they still knew that they had to come in and do the work. We had [Gavin] Henson, Shane [Williams], all these players and you’d think there would be some big egos there, but there really wasn’t, everyone got on. “There were no real fights or anything – or at least only on team socials but that was because of the fancy dress.”

Like most of the squad, Richard competed weekly for game time. “It was the same for every position, except Adam, he was the armchair of the side.” 

Such were Ospreys riches in the playing department, that Richard’s main contenders for the Welsh jersey came from within. “I was always in and out of the squad. When [Huw] Bennett was there [at Ospreys] it was awkward – whoever went away with Wales, the other would have a good run with Ospreys, so when you’d come back from Wales it would be hard to get back in the team.  

“I think it was in 2012, I had a stinker against Australia, I gave two penalties away in the second Test, and it cost us the game [they lost 25-23].”

For the third Test, he was dropped from the squad completely. “I drowned my sorrows in that last week of the tour,” he says. “Once you know on the Tuesday [that you’re not involved] there’s no stopping you. The Friday night you might not go out just in case someone pulls out or just out of respect for the lads – you don’t want to disturb their nights, but it was good [going out].” 

Who did you drink with? “Ian Evans – he’s a dark, dark bloke,” he laughs. “He knew all the good pubs. He’d missed the first Test because he was getting married, didn’t play the second, played the Brumbies and then didn’t play the third test. We treated it like his stag do.” 

Once the hangover was done, Richard was more determined than ever to retain his place. “One of my biggest drivers is to prove people wrong, so that season I had a good crack at the autumn games, and then in the Six Nations, we lost the first game to Ireland 32-31 and then I started the following four games. He [Warren Gatland] could push your buttons, he knew what I hated, but would push my buttons just to get the best out of me. He makes the big calls and pulls them off. He knew I wasn’t the person that needed a hug, I needed a ‘that was shit mate, what are you doing?’, just so I can go and prove them wrong.”

Being dropped against Australia proved to be a turning point, as after benching for the autumn Test against Argentina, he then started fourteen of his next seventeen caps, with three caps for the British & Irish Lions in the middle. His timing was perfect. “I didn’t see the Lions coming,” he admits. “We’d played that summer series [against Australia], lost all three tests, came back and lost all the autumn games, drawing one of them, then lost the first game of the Six Nations – I think we were on an eight-game losing streak.

“Everybody was on top of us, everyone was calling for Gats’ head in the press, and we just got crazy tight. It was us against the outside world. We went to France and got that amazing result [16-3], went to Italy and got a result then Scotland, and got that result and it came down to that England game.”

Famously, Wales blew a much-fancied England side off the park, obliterating them 30-3. “A lot of people say that it was a 50/50 call for the Lions who got it from that game,” he says. “Still to this day, that game is one of the hardest games I’ve played in my life.

“The speed of the game, the intensity – I remember thinking that it must have been thirty minutes [into the game], and having to really dig in, but then looking at the clock and it was about 12:48. I was just thinking ‘how am I going to last this? I looked at Adam and he was just the same’.” 

The game secured his place in the squad, but his opponent that day, Tom Youngs, and his understudy made the squad too. “It was a live announcement,” he says. “And the first two they called out Hartley and Youngs, and because I thought it was alphabetical, I thought that was it, but then it was me – my phone went absolutely berserk, I had to charge it about three times that day.”

As he expected, when joining up with the Lions, his coach came into his own. “This is where Gats comes into his finest,” says Richard. “He enjoys a beer, so whenever you need to let your hair down – the coaching staff, everyone – he takes them out for beers, and within four hours your true personality has come out and you see who the bastards are and who the characters are and that’s what he did with the Lions. 

“The first day was tough, it felt like the first day of school, I was nervous as hell and then you have that nagging doubt, ‘do I deserve to be here?’ and that leads on to the other doubt, ‘do they think I’m good enough to be here?’ And that’s the one that really pushes you, so you try to perform, and respect your peers.”

Any surprises? “Paul O’Connell,” he says, without hesitation, “I thought he was a cheating ginger bastard when I played against him all those years, but what a class bloke. He was my first room-mate. We got on like a house on fire, such a good character, such a cheerful and happy bloke. You play against him though and he’s a miserable bastard.” 

He played in ten games on the tour, including all the three Tests, starting the third decisive Test, one of a number of big changes, including the dropping altogether of the iconic Brian O’Driscoll. “The final Test is where he likes to make a big call, he was like ‘this is my team’,” explains Richard. “Those calls he makes and somehow he gets them spot on, so you can’t argue.”

Winning his first cap remains his biggest achievement, but the Lions is still something else.

“There’s no greater feeling than putting on the Welsh jersey for the first time, but it’s so hard to explain the Lions tour, and how much it means to you.”

Within the first month back with Ospreys, he’d decided it was time to go. “It wasn’t exactly a come down, but the season starts back again and you’re back to reality, the first game back you’re targeted more and it’s back to business,” he says. “I’d done ten years and I just thought ‘let’s try something else’.”

That something else was Gloucester. “Mefin [Davies] had had a torrid time when the Celtic Warriors went bust, and I remember him saying that going there [to Gloucester] and getting out was the best thing, just to experience it,” explains Richard. “I spoke to Paul [James] who was already playing for Bath and I thought he overplayed how hard it was going to be. 

“The first year shocked me,” he admits. “So attritional. You’d play the big teams and think it’s going to be fine, but then you’d play the bottom teams, or those in the mid-table, and they are the ones that are scrapping the hardest – I was naïve to the Premiership, I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was. Every game was savage. I don’t think I had a great first season, but once I adapted, I loved it, it was a great league to play in.”

And he had the Shed too. “Gloucester fans are absolutely class, they’ll follow you thick and thin, they don’t care if you win or lose if they know you’ve done everything you can for the badge. 

“Tesco on a Sunday [after a match] was always interesting – you’d see a Gloucester jersey at the top of an aisle and you’d think, ‘right, skip that aisle’ and they’re waiting for you to choose an aisle to come down. I still see some of them coming to our games now, they’re very loyal.”

So loyal to have your face tattooed on them. “That girl who had a tattoo on her calf,” he says, “how do you explain that to your wife? An 18-year-old girl having a tattoo of you.  That was an awkward conversation, mind. It was an impressive tattoo though, I think she was eventually having a Gloucester sleeve on her leg, so that was surreal. 

“The craziest tattoo I’d seen up to that point was someone with Alun Wyn’s signature on them.”

He signed for a familiar face in former Wales coach Nigel Davies, together with James Hook, who he’d been to school with as well as playing alongside for club and region. But Nigel left and in came Laurie Fisher. “I found him intellectually amazing, he put some serious hours in,” he says. “I was up there on my own [my family didn’t move up until the third season], so I’d get there at 6am, and he’d already be there. 

“I liked him as a bloke, he’d tell you it straight. But then he quit on Twitter. It was nuts. We’d be getting these leads [in games] where we were comfortable, 30-something up, then make a little change at about 58 minutes and we lost the game. We had a few of those that season, and it was after another one at home, when we’d given  up a good lead again. 

“I knew something was up, as he didn’t come into the changing room and say anything. He came in when there were still a few of us around getting our bags, didn’t say anything, and then he put that Tweet out and we didn’t really see him again. 

“We were planning a team social that night, so I was around one of the lads’ flats having a pre-drink and that Tweet comes through and we were like, ‘do we still go out?’ We still had a few beers.”

The Australian, now forwards coach at Brumbies, had posted: ‘Unbelievable capitulation. Clearly not good enough. My responsibility. Time to make room for someone else.’

“That mid-table is a nightmare, and you’re in it for ever,” says Richard. “Ackermann  came in that summer, and he was different. 

“We didn’t get on as well, it was more of a personality thing – I don’t think I played the way he wanted me to play and I ended up leaving at the end of that year – one year early – to go to Dragons.”

By this time, his international career with Wales had long since ended, a final cap coming in the pre-2015 Rugby World Cup warm-up game against Ireland. As soon as he’d arrived in England, the problems caused by not being with a region began to emerge. “What caught me out was what Dave  Humphreys put on the board, ‘boys, with the friendlies and the way the cup competition has levelled out this year, we could potentially play 42 games.’ 

“As a player that’s been brought in, they play you a lot and I had plantar fasciitis [an inflammation on the bottom of the foot] and I’d get out of bed in the night, put my foot down and do a forward roll, because it was so painful, it was a nightmare. 

“I was playing with it during the autumn games for Wales, and I’d played the first two big games but then we had one of the teams where you could move some boys in, and I  was rested. But as soon as you said you weren’t involved in those games it was different when you played in Wales, because you’d stay in the camp but when you’re in England you’re released back to the club. 

“Wales were resting me but Gloucester, in fairness, wanted to play me with an injury I’d been playing through. The Wales physio was telling me I couldn’t play but I was like, ‘how can I tell them I can’t play, I’ve been playing it all year?’. That caused a lot of hype in Wales in the press, and I went and played the last twenty at Harlequins.”

After the controversy, he played again for Wales in the following Six Nations, but wasn’t the same.  “I felt tired, I felt a bit off form, and I was probably carrying a bit more weight than I should have been,” he admits. “I didn’t play well in that Six Nations and there’s always someone ready to go.”

As predicted by his club boss, Gloucester played 42 games that season. “My season finished on May 31st with a play-off against Bordeaux,” he says. “We lost the game and I had so much tape on me they may as well have wrapped me up completely. Wales had already started camp so I was always behind and then that [game against Ireland] was the last time I played.”

Not being selected for the Rugby World Cup was a huge hit. “I never had an inkling it was coming,” he says, “so I was hurt at first. I’d missed two World Cups before, so playing that game against Ireland and not going to the World Cup... 

“I was gutted but I couldn’t question it, I was still feeling the effects of the previous season, and they [Wales] did well, so you couldn’t really question his reasoning. 

“Because of that, I went on one of my phases where I wanted to prove everyone wrong and I had a couple of really good seasons with Gloucester. Then there was a lot of talk in the media about going back but with Gats, once you’re done with him, you’re done. I’m never angry, I’m more glad it’s happened really. I was really enjoying playing in the Prem, and it was always tough when you had to go back to camp. 

“When you were Wales you could be rested [by the region] but not when you’re signed for an English team. I was injured for the last four months there and I still ended up playing 100 odd games for them in four years, so it just shows how much you play.”

A move back to Wales with the Dragons seemed to be the right move at the right time.

“Something was happening back home with the Dragons, Bernard [Jackman] was trying to get all the Welsh boys back and trying to get the region better, and I always believe my fate’s written,” he admits. “You do so much but it’s all written for you and it seemed to be the right decision at that time.” 

The arrival at Gloucester of Australian hooker James Hanson  also gave more weight to his decision. “I felt he suited his [Ackermann’s ] game more. Whereas I love the drive, the tackle, the scrum, I was never going to be a razzle-dazzle. I’ll run into the wall for you all day but you won’t get me cat flapping in the fifteen channels.”

As with Nigel Davies in Gloucester, once again the coach that signed him didn’t last long as Jackman was sacked in his first season. “Bernard’s brought me back and he’s got sacked half way through the season and I’m thinking ‘am I cursed or something?’ But Dean’s [Ryan] come in and again, what a fucking breath of fresh air and that’s what I expected. 

“There were phone calls over the summer – Dean’s coming in and he’s a straight character and I remember his first meeting to this day and he said, ‘look boys, if I come in here and tell you to do this and you’ll start winning, I’ll be wrong. You’ve obviously had so many coaches over so many years, it would be arrogant of me to say just do this and you’ll be sorted’. 

“And he put us on this path, a self-guided path to his plan if that makes sense, to find out things for ourselves, whereas before we had a script and were given the answers, some of the answers were wrong and you weren’t able to adapt. He’s created that mechanism where you deal with it. 

“One of the toughest things for me is he wouldn’t tell us the session plans or the calls and the moves and I’m a stickler for detail – it used to drive me fuckin’ nuts. I’d go to his office every day, ‘can I have the calls please, the game’s in three weeks’. He’d just say, ‘that’ll all take care of itself’, and he just had this mentality of simple and fast. 

“We played our first pre-season friendly and we played simple and fast and we blew the Scarlets off the park and it was nuts. He’s  been nothing like he’s been described in the media. He says it himself mind, the element that he’s got the beast locked up frightens people because it’s locked up as opposed to people seeing it, and it hasn’t come out yet. 

“For me to even say ‘Dean’s a breath of fresh air’ – I’m quite shocked to say it from what I had heard from those conversations last summer. Even now I think we’re well ahead of lots of teams because of the culture that’s been created. 

“Even during lockdown we were having meetings every Tuesday and having guest speakers coming in and we had an end of season dinner on Zoom where we all got smashed – there’s nothing weirder than sitting in your office smashed with no one around you just a laptop.” 

Ryan has had an impact, created a ‘spark’ for Richard , just as others have done for various aspects of his skillset. “Humphs [Jonathan Humphreys, former Ospreys forwards coach] came in and created a spark for me in the scrum. I liked scrummaging, but I didn’t love it and he created that spark for me. 

“Laurie [Fisher] did it with all his artistic ways, he created a spark as you didn’t know what he was going to say, Gats was the same, he created a spark because you just wanted his approval – he put you in that place where you just didn’t know where you stood with him, it was a tough one.”

At 36, with three children – aged twelve, ten and three – Richard is  definitely the most senior of players these days. “I do feel my age now and again,” he admits. “I’m experienced, I understand what some boys go through, and I try to explain to them but they need to go through those experiences and come out the other side.

“You know you’re a senior player because you’ve played with most of your fuckin’ coaches, that’s always a tell-tale sign. You’re normally more comfortable to say stuff, more comfortable to challenge and I always like to challenge if what I thought was right.” 

“I’ve always wanted to play as long as I can possibly play,” he says as we talk of retirement, “the moment I doubt myself in doing what I can do or what I pride myself on, that’s when I’ll call it a day. But when these sparks come back it gives you a new springboard, it’s like you’ve gone in for a shock change and you just feel great again. 

“I’ve started this Dragons journey and I’d like to be part of it for a bit longer in any capacity, they might need me to nurture someone coming through and that’s all part of adapting. And now I’ll invest in things that are going to make you last longer, so I’ve got every gadget and device: pumps, ices, guns, mats with spikes, anything that can give the little one percent. None of them might work but when all added together they might. 

“It’s crazy but even though I am a little bit older I don’t feel any different than I felt four years ago.

“People doubting you or trying to seek approval has always been a big driver for me and with people saying it’s time for him to stop now, I want to prove those fuckers wrong now too, I just love doing that.”

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Oli Hillyer-Riley

This extract was taken from issue 11 of Rugby.
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