Olly Cracknell made his Wales debut on the weekend, coming off the bench to take on Argentina
Olly Cracknell won his first cap for Wales on Sunday(Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency Ltd)
If you find yourself down a YouTube rugby rabbit hole, you might stumble across a video creatively titled ‘Six Nations Rugby: Inspirational!’
In the 14 years the four-and-a-half minute video has lived online, it’s garnered around 880,000 views. It’s a fair bet to assume a decent amount of those views belong to Wales’ newest cap, Olly Cracknell.
“There was a video when I was quite young and I have watched it throughout my career,” explains Cracknell. “It’s on YouTube.
“I think I just typed in ‘Six Nations motivation’ and it’s Morgan Freeman doing Invictus, then there is someone over the top speaking about the Welsh squad.”
Between that and the clip of Michael Sheen’s goosebump-inducing speech on A League of Their Own, the 31-year-old has found his own bank of motivational content to spur him on.
At times, the thought of being part of that montage – a member of the Welsh squad soundtracked by stirring music and a rousing voiceover – faded. The dream died a little in the face of one hurdle or another.
But Cracknell’s tale is one of resilience – a trait passed on by his parents.
Last Sunday, he achieved that dream – winning his first cap off the bench against Argentina.
“It was a really special week,” he says. “Being a bit older and having a bit of experience with getting in and not playing made it a bit sweeter for me and I felt that I could really enjoy it and soak it in. I felt ready for it.
“It’s taken a while and I have had a few tough times, but I am sure every player will have tough moments in their career.
“Resilience is something that I feel I have luckily learned from my parents. They were both quite resilient people. I was lucky with the way that I was brought up and that’s a part of me.”
Both his parents, Felicity and Tom, were judges. “My mum has a very persistent personality with the way that she approaches her work. She is very professional and very hard-working.
“I have taken that. Early in my career, I had this opportunity to go to South Africa when I was fresh out of school.
“I learned a lot from the way she approached that. It was a cool opportunity which I wanted to do, but it was really hard trying to get a visa.
“Going to the South African embassy was a nightmare. I was getting the Megabus down to London, waiting in a queue for hours, finding out you haven’t got all the documents you need, getting another bus.
“Then I was trying to speak to the coaches in South Africa and they wanted video footage. So now I’m trying to put that together as an 18-year-old in 2013, when footage wasn’t the easiest thing to come by.
“I was doing it on DVD-ROMs. But she never gave up on that. That was the start of my journey.”
New Wales cap Olly Cracknell(Image: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans Agency)
Unfortunately, his father passed away last year after a long illness – just days before the start of last season.
“My dad was very resilient in a different kind of way,” he says. “He was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was young, 12 or 13.
“I remember sitting down as a family and we didn’t know what it was going to be like. He managed to live for another 17 years and was very stoic with the way that he went about that.
“He’d put it to one side and take things as they came. I learned a lot from that as well.”
It’s a cliché to say Cracknell’s journey to the Welsh shirt has been anything but straightforward. “I’ve had to just keep plugging away and getting to where I am now, after a lot of the tough times that I have had, is great,” he explains.
“I remember being at the Ospreys in 2021, not playing, not getting in the team and just going to the gym, trying to get stronger and bigger.
“I didn’t know where the next opportunity would be, I couldn’t find a club and I thought that I just had to keep pushing and try to get myself ready to perform in case something came.”
As well as falling out of favour with the Ospreys, his next club – London Irish – went to the wall financially, leading him to his current team, Leicester Tigers. Cracknell can’t help but laugh as some of the obstacles are read back to him.
“There have been a lot of battles along the way, and that has made it a lot sweeter,” he adds.
Cracknell had been part of a Wales squad previously, called up for the 2017 Six Nations. However, a cap eluded him.
“I’ve always wanted to be here and there was a time when I fell out of favour at the Ospreys that I stopped looking at it and dreaming about it,” he admits.
“I stopped watching those videos and the games. When I started building myself back up, I’d start watching the Welsh motivational videos that I used to watch again.
“I’d have it there knowing that it would take a lot of work to get here.
“Selection is one man’s opinion. It’s external, so I might not get here, but at least have it driving me has been really useful and quite important.”
He adds: “When I was 21 I was so blinkered. I had tunnel vision and put a lot of pressure on myself.
“When I got into the squad when I was 22 it was that same blinkered approach and I didn’t really take that much in. It’s taken me quite a long time to be able to take things in and find ways to do that with different approaches.
“I appreciate the journey and manage to see the overview.”
The physical back-row has worked with former Northampton and England flanker Calum Clark on his mental skills and psychology, only strengthening that resilience. The one-cap Clark was even in Cardiff on Sunday to see Cracknell get on the pitch.
Clark will appreciate that resilience in his game. So too will Cracknell’s coaches and team-mates.
Again, it’s a cliché, but the Yorkshire-born Cracknell is all about the fundamentals. It’s only now that he’s realised the worth of that.
“That resilience is a part of my game,” he says. “I am not necessarily going to come up with special moments all the time but I will hopefully be someone that keeps turning up.
“That provides something different in a way. There are a lot of players in the team that can do special things and maybe I can offer something steady.
“It’s taken me quite a while to realise that’s OK and that’s enough, I can be a player who does some of the not so pretty stuff. I am hopeful that’s enough.
“Bringing physicality is a big thing for me and bringing the fundamentals that I have tried to build over the last two or three seasons.
“Being flash has never really been my game, it’s more fire.
“I just want to keep getting better as a player and push to the next level.
“I feel that in the last year and a half I have taken some really good steps, developed and found different levels to my performance.
“I want to push to the next level again and whatever opportunities I get with Wales will be great.”
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