SOME CAMPS can be brutal. Repetition. Being confronted with how you should do things. The barked commands. But then when the hard yakka bears fruit, oh boy, can you appreciate the results.
Right there on a rainy Hale street, you see the evidence. Toby doesn’t hesitate to come to heel. His treat is well earned.
The black and caramel dachshund is out for a walk with owner Tom Curry, a first day back at home after weeks of grinding at doggy bootcamp. And you can tell the Sale, England and Lions bruiser is chuffed with the result. With a call of “close”, Toby comes by Curry’s side. The analysis, the training, has paid off. And then with a shout of “Finish!” he is off again, on the hunt for another outsized stick to chew.
On a dreich day in this Trafford suburb, Curry explains why he wanted his show-stealing best pal to be trained up, to unlearn the encounters with bulldogs when scrappy Toby learnt nipping was working for him, or how England team-mates Ellis Genge, Jamie George and Sale’s Akker van der Merwe sang of the benefits.
It feels like quite an adult thing to do, we remark. “Well, even getting a dog is proper adulting,” Curry replies. “He’s taught me a lot, to be fair. As in having a dog has.” But the theme of learning – of growth – is a standout. And it all starts by looking back on 2019, when England fell at the last hurdle in Yokohama, losing a World Cup final to South Africa. How does he reflect on those experiences?
“Yeah, special,” he says. “It’s brilliant because you know where you have to be. Where you need to get to and what the requirements are. And it’s not just about the Rugby World Cup. It’s the pre-season. It’s getting yourself right in the off-season before. So it gives you an understanding of where you need to be at and ultimately how to get better. Like, we’ve
