LIFE OF A JOUREYMAN
I GOT called Pete Tong once because I’ve played in more clubs than him,” says Paul Doran Jones. Now self-employed, renovating property as well as playing for Rosslyn Park, the prop had a career that took him through Leinster, King Country in New Zealand, London Welsh, Gloucester, Northampton, Harlequins and Wasps, as well as repping England six times. For some, he is the quintessential ‘journeyman’.
Yet he says on moving clubs: “They were decisions that enriched me as a person. I have seen different clubs, different coaches, different people, and that is what I thrive on. Sometimes there are financial or other incentives, but that’s what drives me. I get stagnant very quickly, so I like to change things up. I make no apologies for that.”
In our game we bury one-club players under praise while at the same time devouring the transfer news about the biggest Test stars. But there is a whole other world out there, of levels, nations and cultures we may know little about.
On the dawn of professionalism, John Daniell wrote in his book Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary: “The lot of a rugby mercenary is hard to beat.” But how do today’s journeymen see it? Some move for money, others for life experiences, and many more as it is the only way to find a job. We meet a few characters…
“Two games into the Super Rugby season, my wife found a tumour in her neck. That was devastating”
SLIDING DOORS
IT IS amazing how two contrasting routes can lead vastly different people to the same place. For Irish tighthead Jamie Hagan and English fly-half Sam Katz, their paths to Béziers in the ProD2 differ greatly.
Hagan came through the Irish elite system, operating at Leinster on three separate occasions, winning silverware, powering Connacht, winning a single Ireland cap and even playing Super Rugby for Melbourne Rebels. But throughout his time at big teams, fate often stepped in; things would turn out differently than he would have initially envisaged. Not that the philosophical prop is bitter about things – far from it. He is just aware that life is full of quirks.
Giving one example, he
