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“The most frustrating part about it is that I was never really spoken to,” Gareth Steenson:
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The greatest 10 Ireland never had. Of that there can be little question. For what other out-half in Irish history could kick his club to the Aviva Premiership title and yet still be absent from a tour to the USA and Japan in a Lions year? In a different era and under different management, Steenson could be approaching 50 caps.
Instead, the man who has been one of the most consistent performers in the Premiership over the last seven years has been criminally overlooked time and again. A Premiership golden boot winner no less, he was reaching those heights in 2013/14 but was never even mentioned as a viable alternative.
Ronan O’Gara had gone, and Johnny Sexton was the premier fly-half in the country, but what about depth? Back-up? Players who have been nowhere near the best at their province, let alone their country, got shots where he didn’t. And then of course Sexton has had injury problems, but no sniff of a chance emerged. But this is nothing new for the Dungannon-native, who turned 33 a month before we sit down to talk.
I actually meet and speak to Steenson in the week leading up to Exeter’s league semi-final with Saracens. He’s good natured and fun, immediately cracking jokes and having a laugh. After the usual pleasantries we get down to it, but not before he asks about me, a mini-interview if you will. Asking where I’m from, how long I’ve been in England, what I think of London etc.
It’s a small thing, but shows his humility. I always remember an interview with David Walsh, the legendary journalist who played a major role in outing Lance Armstrong, who revealed that though he interviewed England great Jonny Wilkinson on countless occasions, he had to laugh when the former Toulon man announced after his retirement an intention ‘to help people in a positive way, because I want to know their stories’. This from someone who Walsh, a man who travelled the globe to ask Wilkinson about his life, said had never once asked him about his own.
It shows the humbleness of Steenson. A man who has not only been denied a chance of playing for Ireland, but was also denied any proper communication.
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“I think the most frustrating part about it is that I was never really spoken to,” he says.
“I was never really given any info. I had one phone call from Les Kiss (assistant coach at the time) about the tour the last time the Lions was on in 2013, Ireland were going to the States. And that was the only stage that I got a phone call. And if I’m being honest it was more just a courtesy phone call to say ‘yes I’d rang you’, and I was a little disappointed in that.
“But I’d love to have gone to one training camp. I’d have been happy to go to one training camp and if they’d turned round and said: ‘Gareth it’s not for you’, I could have happily went: ‘that’s fine’. But again it was something completely out of my control.”
For self-confessed rugby fanatic Joe Schmidt, who has frequently claimed to watch all rugby around the world, to never have even spoken to Steenson seems in poor taste.
“I only ever had one phone call,” Steenson added. “I’ve never spoken to Joe Schmidt. I think we played Clermont here the first year we were promoted and he walked past me and said hello and that was the extent of my communication with him. It is what it is.”
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Steenson’s rise to even be in the conversation is a remarkable one. Unorthodox, unconventional. Opportunities at his home province had stagnated and so he took a stab in the dark, crossing the Irish Sea for the first time in his life. A formidable and unnerving step for a 22-year-old no doubt.
“I was in the Ulster academy at the time and Mark McCall actually was the coach, and he brought me in and said: ‘look David Humphreys is going to be staying on for another year or two’, and I was at the point where it was kind of like, ‘I’m 22 years of age, I actually do it now or I’m never going to go any further’.
“I was quite fortunate that Andre Bester, who coached Belfast Harlequins, had moved to Rotherham and he’d always asked me to go and play for them. So he just said: ‘there’s an opportunity here, you’re not going to be playing professional rugby but you’re going to be playing in a league which is quite well renowned’, and I was like: ‘I’ll take a leap of faith’, and I went for it for a year and that was the thought process behind that.
“I went and did a year in Rotherham and ended up working alongside it and then got picked up by Cornish Pirates.
“I was hugely nervous on that first trip. It was the first time I’d ever been away from home. I was a real home person, whenever I was in Belfast when I was playing at Dunganon and Queens, I was going up to training sessions and then travelling back to Armagh, that’s just the way we were.
“It’s not like then jumping on a boat to go across to Rotherham and not having a clue where I was driving too, or not having a clue what Rotherham looked like or anything. It was a bit daunting but was a great life experience really. I had to grow up pretty quickly and I had to learn to fend for myself and it probably gave me a wee bit of backbone.”
Once at Exeter, the story takes on almost mythical proportions at this stage. The Chiefs had never experienced top flight rugby until 2010 and 30 years ago finished ninth in the third tier, below the Met Police. They shared a stadium with local speedway team Exeter Falcons up until 12 years ago, and the last time their 2017 Premiership final opponents Wasps had reached that stage, the Chiefs were playing in front of less than 500 people.
It truly is one of the fairytale stories in sport. But for every stage of that journey from the Championship, and every first experience, Steenson has been there for each one since 2008. First promotion, first Premiership game, first playoff, first European qualification, first European campaign, first European knockout game, first semi-final victory, first Premiership final and now the holy grail, a first Premiership title. It’s been a behemoth journey.
“If you’re talking about careers and it comes to looking back on it, you couldn’t ask for a better one really.
“For a player who hasn’t got to international rugby, I’ve got to experience a lot of firsts here, a lot of emotion with each one. You know, the emotion of not getting promoted the first year I was here, to the elation of ‘we’ve done it’, to staying up.
“From looking from the outside it might have seemed really small things, like us staying up, or getting ourselves into the European Cup for instance. The elation the club felt, I’m very lucky to be in the position that I can turn around and say I’ve seen those sorts of things.
“We’ve had some amazing days. One of the best days I’ve ever experienced was when we beat the Ospreys to get qualification into the Champions Cup quarter-finals. I don’t think even Hollywood could have scripted something as funny as that, with Morgan Parra doing something crazy on the other side and we didn’t even know we’d got through!
“This place holds a special place in my heart. It’s my home club now. I’d never think of it any other way. I’m emotionally bonded to the place now. Every time I take to the field it’s an emotional experience. It’s a great place to come to work.”
School-mates with Ulster and Ireland winger Tommy Bowe, their respective careers have taken wildly different routes. Looking at what Bowe has gone on to achieve, I ask Steenson if he ever wonders if things could have worked out differently for him, or if there’s a bit of envy there at all.
“I’m only human and I’m a wee bit like ‘what if?’, but to be honest with you at this point, if I was 25 or 26 years of age and you asked me the same question I’d probably have answered it differently.
“I think now I understand that it’s taken me a bit longer to get to where I am and I had to go through a few different experiences to become and be in a position to play at the highest level that I possibly can. Obviously Tommy had it very differently, and it was very nice actually to play Ulster this year, albeit he only played two minutes!
“At least now I can say we’ve been on the pitch together since we were at school which is lovely, but it’s probably something I’ll look back on and think ‘what if?’ But I’ve had a great career here and when I look back on it I’m not really going to have too many complaints.”
An Exeter club legend, and at this point an honorary Devon-man. I’m curious to know though whether a return to Ulster or any other Irish province was ever on the cards. Something the norm for most exiled players.
“No I’ve never had a conversation with Ulster. And to be honest, I’ve never had a conversation with any Irish province about going home. I know there’s been reports that I have, but I’ve never had an approach.
“It’s hard to say now [whether an offer would have tempted him]. It depends on when it would have been, where we were at, what would have been entailed with it. When I was at Cornish Pirates and trying to get myself playing at the top level, if they’d come asking then I would have been very tempted, but as the club’s progressed I’ve enjoyed the journey of this and I don’t really have any desire to go back home.”
As he mentions above, Steenson was afforded the chance to return to Ulster this season as Exeter were drawn into the same European Cup pool as the northern province. He’d come full circle.
“It was emotional. It was very exciting because there was a lot of my family who had never seen the Exeter Chiefs play live. So it’s quite nice they only had to drive about an hour up the road to watch that.
“It was strange running out at ‘Kingspan’, because I don’t know it as that, I know it as Ravenhill and it looked very different. But it was nice to be able to say, well I can remember standing on that terrace over there, albeit I thought I’d be wearing a different jersey, but I was back there and it was a really good experience. We didn’t get the win in the end but it was very enjoyable.
“I really enjoyed having Ulster here as well. Because I remember always going back home and people asking me: ‘oh are you still playing rugby?’, and I’d say: ‘yeah I’m with the Exeter Chiefs’, and they’d always respond, ‘well who are they? I’ve never heard of them’, and there we are in a European night and we’re giving them a kicking!”
His current deal with Exeter runs until the summer of 2018, by which time he’ll be 34. So what does the future hold for him? And what would he say to any Irish player struggling to make it at their province, but unsure of moving away.
“Hopefully there’s a few more years left. I’m feeling good, I’m feeling physically well. I enjoy the game and I feel I’m playing well and playing good rugby. I want to keep going on as long as I can, so we’ll see what the future holds.
“I would say if you have a desire to actually play the game, go and give it a try. Especially in the Championship. You’ll struggle to see a lot of guys who haven’t actually played in the Championship who are playing in the Premiership now.
“I know the way the system sort of works at home, where it’s hard to make that step and jump and go, and take a leap of faith because you don’t really know what the leagues are about and what it is.
“But to me, playing rugby is far better than going into the gym and lifting weights all the time. If you want to be a rugby player, be a rugby player and not a weightlifter or something.
“I know there’s a lot of guys who just kind of enjoy that but if you don’t get the opportunity, there’s plenty of other options out there. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
Chapeau Gareth. Undoubtedly the greatest 10 Ireland never had.
