Jack Willis: Ref defence of crocodile rolls made me snap

[Heathen]

Jack Willis: Ref defence of crocodile rolls made me snap
Jack Willis
Saturday September 25 2021, 12.00am, The Times

I knew from bitter experience that the road back to playing rugby from a full knee reconstruction would not be plain sailing. It was why I was keen to document the journey, to provide some insight into what a player goes through when they are out of the spotlight and away from the thrill of a match day.

Most of the time is dull, monotonous rehabilitation. Physically I have been making good progress and remain on course to be fit by Christmas.

For months I managed the emotional battle successfully, first by forgetting about rugby, which was easy because I was in a strop with the sport, and then by keeping my focus incredibly narrow, one day at a time.

I was holding up well until Wasps went away on a pre-season training camp. Joe Launchbury and I are both recovering from knee surgery and he has been a rock for me — but things just all got a bit too much during that week at Bisham Abbey.

I reintegrated into all the rugby meetings and that was a mistake. I would be excited by all the rugby talk and then have to turn left towards the gym while the team turned right to the pitches. I had started to think about playing again, about the end goal and that just reinforced how far I still had to travel. That is where I started to struggle.

It all boiled over when Christophe Ridley, the RFU referee, came in to talk to us about the new laws in place this season. I was interested only in one: the directive that referees must penalise players who target the lower limbs of an opponent in a ruck.

I was injured while playing for England against Italy when Sebastian Negri clamped me around my torso and rolled me sideways out of a ruck, pulling me over my planted left knee. The result was a ruptured medial collateral ligament, torn posterior cruciate ligament and cartilage damage.

The new directive bans players from targeting or dropping their weight on to the lower limbs of an opponent but it does not mention a crocodile roll. World Rugby has basically accepted that this technique is still OK, as long as you do it in a certain way.

It would have been much cleaner if it had said, “No croc rolling whatsoever” because there is still risk and it is something that I will always worry about. It’s very close to home. I have spent a lot of time off the field due to the consequences of that kind of action.
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I took that out on Christophe, as if it was his fault. He explained you are allowed to actively try to pull a player to the side by the torso but not allowed to hit and then flop on to the leg.

I just said to him, “It is incredibly difficult for referees to judge the difference. How are you meant to judge the difference between what is allowed and not allowed?” Christophe handled it brilliantly and I apologised to him afterwards for getting angry.

I didn’t go back to my hotel room and trash it, in the style of Paul Gascoigne, but I was already feeling quite emotionally fragile. A week earlier I had completed my first running session. To a fit athlete, running is such a small thing but it was an enormous day on my journey.

Megan, my girlfriend, greeted me at the door and I just burst into tears. It was a range of emotions: happiness that I had achieved my first run and was back on track, but equally there was a lot of frustration and emotion that came out about how shit it has been and how much I had missed it all and how long I still have to go.
Willis attends a training session earlier this month; he is in the final stages of his rehabilitation from injury sustained in February
Willis attends a training session earlier this month; he is in the final stages of his rehabilitation from injury sustained in February
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES

The following week I went to Bisham. I was up and down emotionally and then allowed myself to start looking too far ahead and the meeting with Christophe was the trigger.

I spoke to our psychologist, Chris Marshall, and he is helping me to avoid getting back to that point again, where I’m bottling up the emotions and just waiting for another explosion. I will chat with him every couple of weeks and identify where I’m at and things I’m thinking about so we have these smaller releases rather than getting myself in a bit of a hole again.

I feel now like I’m in a better place. It has made me stronger going into this last block of rehabilitation and I am back taking it day by day and that is definitely the best way to look at it.
Willis with the new Wasps sauna facility that bears his name
Willis with the new Wasps sauna facility that bears his name

Wasps have just opened a new training facility and it is awesome. It has been a long wait, but the facilities are incredible. And as James Haskell would say, at least we don’t have people walking in off the street using our showers and dipping their hands into our jar of supplements.

And the sauna has been named after me! About a year ago we had a presentation from Stephen Vaughan, the chief executive, who went through all the plans for the training ground.

I asked whether the club had thought about heat therapy, a sauna or a hot tub. Stephen started teasing me about being soft and said that the facility would have to be called the Jack Willis Memorial Sauna. I may be injured, but I am not dead yet.

Wasps took it on board, built a brilliant facility and they have named it after me: the Jack Willis Sauna.

[Brandnewtorugby]

I still don't understand why somebody legitimately trying to pick up a ball can be prevented by someone off their feet and then smashed or wrestled by another.