{"id":222614,"date":"2025-10-24T12:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222614\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T12:19:06","slug":"anger-is-not-a-massive-driver-baths-will-stuart-on-finding-a-middle-ground-for-rugby-success-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222614\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Anger is not a massive driver\u2019: Bath\u2019s Will Stuart on finding a middle ground for rugby success | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some players are comfortable blowing their own trumpet. Not Will Stuart, even after a memorable year lifting multiple trophies with the British & Irish Lions and Bath<\/a>. Ask the self-effacing prop whether he might have earned himself a few more media and commercial opportunities and he genuinely looks horrified. \u201cIt\u2019s not really for me,\u201d he murmurs. \u201cI struggle with it in general. Maybe it\u2019s a mental block.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welcome to the endearingly quirky world of England\u2019s most left-field squad member. Did you know that Stuart\u2019s paternal grandfather \u2013 also the son of the Bishop of Uganda \u2013 used to play No 8 in the same rugby team as Idi Amin, who featured as a lock? Or that his maternal great-grandfather was shot down in 1918 by the Red Baron before going on to act in, among other films, the Lavender Hill Mob?<\/p>\n

Then there is the incongruous fact that, as a kid, England\u2019s 50-cap front-row hulk played the flute. \u201cIt was bullied out of me when I was 13. I wish I\u2019d kept it on.\u201d And all this before we both shift our gaze down past his meaty thighs to the eclectic range of tattoos on his left foot. Among the designs is a small cartoon lion and an image of his big-haired teammate Alfie Barbeary, reminders of his summer exploits in Australia and Bath\u2019s Premiership title success<\/a>. Barbeary is apparently thrilled. \u201cThe Lions put a picture of it on their social media page so Alfie\u2019s claiming that, by extension, that means he\u2019s been on a Lions tour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next entertaining topic \u2013 do keep up \u2013 is of how close he came to losing the Lions the Test series. At a pivotal late juncture in the second Test in Melbourne<\/a>, with a big scrum looming, the footplate of his left boot disintegrated with no spare immediately available. Having previously boasted about wearing the same pair of cheap, old faithfuls all season, his professional life briefly flashed in front of him.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the biggest scrum of his career, the tighthead\u2019s only option was to ask Tadhg Furlong to lend him one of his. \u201cIt was my inside stud on my inside foot which is kind of my most important one. The boots had done 38 games by that point and every scrum training session as well. I was slightly nervy for 10 seconds.\u201d It did not help that Furlong\u2019s size 10 boots were two sizes too small. \u201cMy foot was king-prawned in there. Mizuno now send me boots probably because my agent couldn\u2019t believe I\u2019d bought my original pair off the shelf from a sports shop in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Stuart was forced to borrow Tadhg Furlong\u2019s too-small boots during the second Test match between Australia and British and Irish Lions after the footplate of his own disintegrated. Photograph: David Davies\/PA<\/p>\n

All\u2019s well that ends well. But, hang on, let\u2019s briefly rewind. Given the 29-year-old Stuart also played in the final Test in Sydney that means he featured in 39 games last season. In theory, elite players are meant to feature in no more than 30.<\/p>\n

How fresh is Stuart feeling now, then, ahead of Bath\u2019s derby with Bristol at the Recreation Ground and an onrushing reunion with a motivated Australian scrum on Saturday? In response, he offers up another telling little anecdote. \u201cI managed to injure myself during the off season which was fairly embarrassing. I did it lifting a very small amount of weight above my head in Trowbridge Pure Gym. I got a back spasm and slightly slipped a disc. It\u2019s usually the way. The body holds on for a whole season, then you relax for two weeks and something happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

You will have to wait a long time, however, before the big man complains too loudly about anything. If the laid-back Finn Russell was ever reincarnated as a tight head then the player he would most closely resemble would be his affable English mate. Recently a former England age-group colleague, Gloucester\u2019s Ollie Thorley, jokingly told Stuart his U20 teammates would not have backed him to become an all-conquering Test Lion. \u201cI think they thought I\u2019d probably crash and burn aged 20,\u201d says Stuart. \u201cBut I was never laid back in terms of training or the gym. It was probably just the perception that I didn\u2019t take anything else too seriously at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

What relatively few people understood was that deep down he did want it. Tony Jackson, his coach at Radley College, had told him at 16 that if he switched to prop he could prosper. \u201cHe told me, \u2018You can be a Nat One-level back rower or potentially an international-level tight head\u2019.\u201d It encouraged him to aim that bit higher. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain but I\u2019m low-key competitive. I want to play in the biggest games against the best people. That\u2019s always been my driver. It\u2019s quite a rewarding thing to try to be at the top of something. And I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s anything else in life I\u2019d be at the top of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It has not always been an easy road: from \u201cgetting pasted every week\u201d on loan at Blackheath to an unfulfilling period as a young squad hopeful at Wasps. Finally he has found inner satisfaction with Bath and England. \u201cFor me it\u2019s been about finding the middle ground. I\u2019ve gone through periods of trying to be as laid back as possible which got me to a certain point. Then I went down a more intense route and found I didn\u2019t enjoy my rugby as much. For me the last year has been the most I\u2019ve enjoyed rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Off the field, he has popped the question to his now-fiancee, Nancy. A case of crouch, touch, engaged? \u201cWe met in Oxford when I\u2019d just turned 20 so there\u2019s been a nine-year pause.\u201d The only slight issue has been the facility with which he loses and gains weight. \u201cIt was an off season of getting scowled at because I lost 5-6kg just as she was starting a \u2018wed shred\u2019 to lose a couple of pounds before the wedding. Er, not that she needs to \u2013 can I put that on the record?\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, though, Stuart\u2019s 135kg presence is required elsewhere. Three years ago, he scored two tries off the bench to secure a Twickenham draw against the All Blacks while his record against southern hemisphere opposition in general remains an enviable one. And if he trots out looking rather more relaxed than angry, don\u2019t be fooled. \u201cAnger is not a massive driver. The few times I\u2019ve been really angry in my life I\u2019m usually quite hard to roll back from that level. It\u2019s not an emotion I\u2019m very good at handling.\u201d All hail England\u2019s strong man but he\u2019d rather you didn\u2019t sing his praises too loudly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some players are comfortable blowing their own trumpet. Not Will Stuart, even after a memorable year lifting multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-222614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}