Two red cards in two test matches make Charlie Ewels sound like someone from a list of young offenders, but the reality is far from that.
When he was pulled over by England’s corporate lawyer in the changing rooms of Tokyo’s National Stadium, he knew his tour would not end well. The 6ft6in lock had just become the first player to be sent off twice in as many Tests and on second viewing his reckless takedown on Michael Leitch did not look good.
“I watched it back in the dressing room with the KC, Richard Smith, and thought: ‘Yes, that’s a red card’,” Ewels remembers. ‘I have never gone onto a rugby field with the intention of hurting anyone, but I misunderstood that. For about five seconds the guys show they care, and then rugby is pretty good at filling the gap with humor. Aled Walters just put his arm around me and whispered in my ear: Imagine if you got a third!’
Ewels is not the menacing presence you would expect from someone with two red cards in two Tests. Funny and engaging – more lineout technician than snarling enforcer – he is soon ordered to cover up his new ‘Hawk Tuah’ t-shirt as he talks club and country at Bath’s stately training base.
He remembers the lonely 14-hour flight home from the English summer tour. A moment of laughter or tears. Demoted from the usual business class luxury of an England rugby player, he was assigned a seat with a broken TV as his teammates continued their journey to New Zealand.
England and Bath star Charlie Ewels spoke to Mail Sport for an exclusive interview
“To be honest, I half expected to be inside with the luggage!” says Ewels, who now has 30 caps. ‘I couldn’t watch a movie because my screen wasn’t working, so I just read my book. Ryan Halliday, Silence is the Key.
‘There was a feeling of, ‘Ah, not again’, but that’s sport. I spoke to the boys the night before the game and said this means more than my first cap because I almost had to work harder for it. Then it ends. That’s life. I’m not proud of it, but you quickly realize that it’s an ancient history and the only thing you can change is what you do in the future.’
Back in Bath there is plenty to keep him busy. He came home the day before his 29th birthday and booked tickets for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Primarily an off-season social gathering, it was also a chance to learn from the masters of the pit lane.
“Finn Russell, Mr. Worldwide, helped us with a few pit passes. As we were doing the pit walk, a lady who used to work in the Bath marketing team, Kat Farmer, who now works for Red Bull, shouted: “Ewelsy, Ewelsy, come over!” It was the end of the practice day, when the cars don’t look like cars, just floating engines being tinkered with.
“It wasn’t the one-per-centers they were looking at. It was the 0.001 percent centers. Three or four hours after the race, every garage was still running at capacity; What can we take from the data to adjust so that we are a little better tomorrow? The driver was gone, surrounded by screaming fans asking for autographs, but these guys were standing there in the dark at 10pm with the keys and no one even knows their names. We have the medical team, the S&C team… it’s so much more than just Finn Russell. Those are the parallels.’
Bath have endured a turbulent few years, flirting with relegation. Thanks to Russell and Co, they are now favorites to win their first Premiership title since 1996. As someone who first joined the club in 2012, what does Ewels see as the fundamental changes?
‘Johann van Graan is the man at the top. It takes many small changes to change the ship’s direction. We now have a meeting room, where previously we had a physio room and a meeting room. They have installed a sauna in the changing room; a small one percent like the F1 analogy.
“They knocked down a wall in the Rec locker room to free up the space in the middle so we could put two TVs in; one facing backward and one facing forward.
‘We have a nutritionist, so every day the food is tailored to that day; Breakfast may contain more carbohydrates as we have a big session in the afternoon.
‘We do yoga a few times a week so the boys have a better understanding of their bodies and what is tight. We have a place in town called YogaKave where they tailor a session for rugby players. It’s backs and hips, not sitting in downward dog for twenty minutes because all our shoulders are destroyed.
‘It’s very easy to say, “It’s Finn, everything is Finn, all we had to do was sign Finn,” but Johann has recruited very well across the board. The team is extremely competitive and that stimulates the training. I’m a big believer in everything coming back to training and when you put all those little things together it leads to a higher performing environment.”
Last week, Chelsea’s new academy director Glenn van der Kraan, formerly of Manchester City, was welcomed to the club’s training base. It is a continuous school for improvement, utilizing the sharpest minds from rival sports.
‘Mikel Arteta once came into a camp in England and said, “I love how much you guys are touching, I love this”. When we do something well in rugby, we hug each other or pat each other on the back. In football there are fewer players on a larger field and the ball is so high that they never touch each other. The only time they ever get together is when they score or concede a goal.
‘Now you see Arsenal players celebrating and hugging when they make a tackle. Last week, Glenn said the best time to do that is during training. He observed our sessions and said that the difference between a Champions League player and a League Two player is the obsession with details. Can you become obsessed with the way you play that one-yard pass? Those kinds of things all contribute to the bigger picture.’
Bath fell agonizingly short in last season’s Premier League final, losing to Northampton by a fine margin of four points, but as with his red card in Japan, Ewels quickly advanced.
‘After the final, Johann booked a hotel in Windsor where we had a club event. Johann is a very religious man and not a big drinker. The place we went to was a real chapel turned into a nightclub. He drank a few beers and then said, “It’s that way to the nightclub, which is a real chapel, that I’m having trouble with!”
‘You want to decompress, have a piss and be normal for a while, but the English boys were in camp at 10am on Monday morning. The next thing comes to you very quickly. In a week it will be ancient history and you will be on to the next thing.
‘I’d like to think we’ve made City and the fans proud of us again. Last year was good, there were some good memories, but we come back and now everyone is starting from scratch.”
