Wales vs Australia RWC 2015: Hidden side of deadeye Dan Biggar
Off the field he says he lacks confidence but on it he has been called ‘the bravest No 10 in the world’. Matt Majendie meets Wales’s man of the moment ahead of Saturday’s Wallaby showdown
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Your support makes all the difference.The motto for Gowerton Comprehensive School near Swansea states simply: “Mi ddylwn, mi allaf, mi fynnaf.” It translates as “I should, I can, I shall”, a fitting description for its most talked about alumnus, Dan Biggar.
The Ospreys outside-half is Wales’s man of the moment, his kicks effectively knocking England out of the World Cup and keeping Wales in – he boasts a 100 per cent record from 13 attempts in this tournament.
He has even sparked his own dance craze, “The Biggarena”, a Facebook video clip of his pre-kick ticks to the musical backdrop of The Macarena watched by 1.1 million people and rising.
All this despite being Wales’s second-choice kicker for the tournament – he stepped up to replace the injured Leigh Halfpenny – and someone who was very much Warren Gatland’s second-choice No 10 behind Rhys Priestland for a long period. Also, remember, he was one of the few Welshmen not selected for the 2013 British & Irish Lions.
Biggar’s driving force has always been a steadfast belief that the red No 10 jersey would one day be his. Wales kicking coach, Neil Jenkins, said he believed from watching Biggar at the age of 15 that he would go on to be his country’s talisman, joking that the young player thought so too.
I went home, shut the door and just got away from everything
Asked about his confidence in the build-up to today’s game against Australia, Biggar says: “I think off the field I’m probably the least confident person there is. I don’t really enjoy the limelight at all in terms of what comes with it.
“When I am on the field that is when I am at my most comfortable and when I can relax a bit more in terms of knowing what I’m doing. When I’m on the field, it just fills me with confidence.” Performing is obviously in his blood: he was a lover of drama lessons at school, although he dismisses the link – they were “just something I did, not to be in a classroom” he says.
While Biggar had a reputation before this World Cup as a kicker – a superb one, both from the tee and out of hand – Priestland, who again starts on the bench today, is a player more obviously in the Gatland mould, with his propensity to bring team-mates over the gain line.
But Gatland is persisting with Biggar, who missed out on the last World Cup, and has only recently cemented his spot in the side in part thanks to an additional running game that remains a work in progress. As a result, Wales fans have not fallen in love with him quite like their classic No 10s of the past. At regional level, opposition supporters still get on his back for berating referees, although the public at large are enamoured of his bravery, particularly in the kick and chase.
His kicking is not his only asset. He has beaten more defenders at this World Cup than Australia’s Bernard Foley by a margin of four to three, yet Foley is held up as a creative genius. Biggar’s tackle count is high for an outside-half, to the extent that Ospreys backs coach Gruff Rees called him “the bravest, gutsiest 10 in the world game”.
Wales will expect another man-of-the-match display from him opposite Foley today. But whatever the result, afterwards he will do what he did after directing the dismantling of England. “I went home, shut the door and got away from everything,” he says. “It was good just to go home, have a few friends around, chill out and watch a bit of football – anything but rugby – on TV.”
He admits his determination to switch off from the game altogether when off the field can be maddening for his family and friends, who want nothing more than to dissect his every kick, pass and tackle.
His argument is simple: “I guess if you’re an accountant you don’t want to talk about numbers and figures when you go home each evening. It’s great that we can go home and relax and put anything other than rugby on and forget about rugby just for those days. It’s important to come in fresh and buzzing to go.”
There have been calls to rest him for the Wallabies game today with qualification for the knockout stages already guaranteed, but Biggar always prefers to play. He played for the Ospreys in twice as many Pro12 games last season as Wales captain Sam Warburton did for Cardiff Blues. Plus, the outcome of the game decides who tops Pool A and so avoids South Africa and New Zealand in the subsequent two rounds. It has to be won.
And the outcome will rest heavily on the battle between the fly-halves. Foley described Biggar as “outstanding” in the build-up to today’s game, while the Welshman is equally effusive about his opposite number following Australia’s 33-13 mauling of England, in which Foley scored 28 points.
“His performance [in that game] speaks for itself,” says Biggar. “I thought it was one of the best performances from an outside-half I have seen in quite some time.
“The way he brought the ball to the line, played nice and flat, kicked his goals, he didn’t put a foot wrong. Hopefully he doesn’t play as well again on Saturday and hopefully we can try and control him a little bit.
“But it’s going to be a great spectacle. Both teams have got a bit of pressure off them [having already qualified] so we can go play a bit of rugby, enjoy ourselves and hopefully top our pool.”
Biggar paints a picture of Wales having the time of their lives in the tournament, whether based in their usual camp outside Cardiff or their temporary base in Weybridge, Surrey, where they prepared for the game against England and have fine-tuned things again this week.
“Why shouldn’t we be enjoying it?” he asks. “We have qualified from an extremely tough pool. The players have got every right to enjoy it and feel fairly good about themselves. It has been a really happy camp considering the amount of injuries we’ve had.”
And so, with that endorsement, the player known by former Wales captain Michael Owen as The Guv’nor is primed to play the lead role again.
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