Alun Wyn Jones and Paul O’Connell are two of the leading second-rows of their generation, two Lions captains who have forged their reputations on ultra-competitiveness, a relentless will to win and a burning team ethic. Saturday’s encounter between Wales and Ireland at the Millennium Stadium may be the final time the warriors come up against each other and they will both be, as ever, furiously stoking their team’s engine.
Jones may not, unlike O’Connell, wear the captain’s armband, but he leads by example, as he showed against France in Paris last Saturday when he was at the heart of a concerted forward effort, as combative and forthright at the end as he was at the beginning. He was once described by the former Wales captain Ryan Jones as the angriest man in Welsh rugby but that fury is invariably controlled and he is one player the men in red would not be able to replace.
“Somebody else referred to me as being grumpy,” says Jones when asked about his namesake Ryan’s observation. “I am not that at all. I suppose it is perception: you can be happy but really angry and you can be grumpy and really angry. I like to think I am a happy angry person, if that makes sense. I am proud of being a bad loser. Bad losers are winners. That is the way it should be. ‘Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser,’ as someone once said. It is black and white to me.”
Jones is the type of player, like O’Connell, you have to watch closely to appreciate, always at the heart of the battle, not standing out wide waiting to make a lung-busting, visible run, hands dirty. Martin Johnson comes to mind, the quintessence of a team player whose talking was done on the pitch.
“I remember Paul O’Connell saying a while back that the role of a forward, particularly in the tight five, is to do a job that makes other people look good,” says Jones. “He has been doing that for Ireland ever since he has had the jersey and that is what you want in your pack. Without blowing too much smoke because he is not a guy who likes that sort of stuff, you associate words like ‘icon’ and ‘talisman’ with him. His play highlights his drive and determination for the team, which is worth more than any individual feat of rugby. He is the ultimate team player.”
Jones is up there with the Irishman. His team-mates tell stories about how his competitiveness in training when he has to be the first to everything. “He just keeps going, even when you think he has blown a gasket,” says the flanker Dan Lydiate. “He’s just relentless, picking himself up off the floor and carrying on. He is a player, like Paul O’Connell, I look up to: it is not about how often they talk, but what they say: everyone listens and I have a huge admiration for them.”
The Ireland wing Tommy Bowe used to be a team-mate of Jones at Ospreys, as well as being a fellow Lion. “He is an incredible player,” says Bowe. “How many caps has he got [87]? He is not yet 30. I’d be good friends with him, but there will be no contact between us before the match. If I texted him I would not get a reply because he will be very much in the zone. He is incredibly passionate. It is a big game for both of us and we will chat after it.”
Warren Gatland publicly criticised his forwards after the opening night defeat to England in Cardiff, when the set pieces malfunctioned and the battle at the breakdown was ultimately lost as the visitors turned over an eight-point interval deficit. The head coach’s call for improvement was manifest in Paris, not that Jones is overly impressed as he contemplates Ireland and a match his side have to win to remain in contention for the title.
“Being hypercritical, there are bits we would like to have done better,” he says. “We would like to have got more out of the driving maul and there was a lineout where we could have done better, but when a team is happy to give away penalties you must be doing something right. There are always things to work on: it is never as good or as bad as we are told it is. We are pretty level-headed and know where we need to be moving forward.
“I am competitive because it is fun, a mentality thing, and it is something you have to be in this job. I always want to be first. I wear my stripes on my sleeve and I am not afraid to show them. It is about mindset. I have changed over the years, less misguided now. I know the ways and means to vent now. Everything I do is meant for the good of the team. I still do not react well to defeat, usually not talking for three days until I have an epiphany and realise it is just a game.”
Saturday just a game? It will be a bit more than that as Jones and O’Connell, who is considering retiring after the World Cup, will show.
