As a player, Lewis Moody never stopped, never rested, never relented. The same indefatigable spirit still flows through Moody, but the former England flanker is slowly learning his body’s limits since his diagnosis with motor neurone disease last September.
Last month, Moody took part in The Race to The Slater Cup in which a team of former Leicester and Gloucester players cycled from Welford Road and Kingsholm respectively, to Villa Park before the Prem Rugby fixture. Ostensibly, the race was to raise money for both Moody and Ed Slater’s foundation. Yet, as soon as the “race” element was introduced among a group of former professionals, Moody says it was inevitable that the “competitive juices suddenly went into overdrive”.
Specialists had cautioned Moody that his condition meant he would fatigue quickly, but it took a command from Martin Johnson, his long-term captain with England and Leicester, for that message to be received during the ride. “Johnno was fantastic when we did the Ed Slater ride about being really aware and seeing the level of fatigue that hit me as we were going along, and being able to say, ‘Mate, it’s OK, take a rest’…”, Moody tails off as he takes a moment to compose himself.
“Ah, yeah, the emotions randomly kick in when I’m talking about Johnno, he’ll be delighted by that,” Moody continues. “But just the words saying, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got it from here’. That understanding that it is OK to take a rest now, and I can come back to it.
“When I went to get back on the bike and asked if it was OK, when you feel like you’ve not been fully in it all the way through, and you’re going back to a training session, he was like, ‘Don’t make me punch you in the face again’. He was referring to an old-ground incident where I’d done that after being out injured for a long time, it made me laugh.”
That’s Moody in a nutshell: pathos mixed in with a punchline.