“Wales and the No. 10 shirt have an almost unhealthily close relationship,” the late Eddie Butler once wrote. “The vulnerability of little facing big, the chance to strut: it’s Wales all over.”
It’s funny that, from his upbringing in the “otherness” of the Gower peninsula, those patriotic stirrings were never really present in Dan Biggar. As he admits in his new book, The Biggar Picture, the “folklore of Welsh rugby didn’t permeate” his home village of Llangennith like it does so elsewhere.
In a nation of rugby romantics, where names like Barry and Benny were synonymous with that famous 10 jersey, it was the man raised away from tales of sidesteps and sideburns who thrived in that unhealthy relationship longer than any other. The young boy who idolised the obsessive nature of Jonny Wilkinson forged a path different to the swashbuckling names of old – yet the strut, and the vulnerability, remained.
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“You know what you’re in for when you sign up for the shirt,” Biggar tells WalesOnline ahead of the launch of the book. “Every cap I’ve had, it’s been earned.
“It’s not a cap you win on a Saturday, it’s a Monday to Friday cap. It’s a full-week thing. I remember once we were going around the table in the Vale one night, talking about how many caps we had. I was on about 90. Hallam Amos said, ‘Fair play, 90 at fly-half is like 400 in any other position!'”
There’s always the sense that while the Welsh 10 jersey gives with one hand, it takes in equal measure with the other. Biggar knows only too well about that unhealthily close relationship – the strut and the vulnerability.
He’s reaped the rewards, but nursed the wounds too. “If you don’t want to cop the flack, don’t play 10 for Wales,” he adds. “That doesn’t make it any easier when it comes, though!”
The book is everything you’d expect from Biggar. It’s unflinchingly honest and typically absorbing, with Biggar having been present for some of the biggest moments in Welsh rugby in the past 15 or so years. Even the ones he missed out on, like the 2013 Lions, make for interesting reading – one of many slights that ultimately drove him on to bigger and better things.
“In the early days with Wales, it always felt like one step forward, two steps back,” he says. “I just doubted myself, asking if I was good enough or if I’d have the career I’d want.”
The 34-year-old has always appeared a cocksure individual, comfortable about what he does well – even if they weren’t always fashionable assets. Yet, sometimes the outside noise became too much, as was the case after a Six Nations defeat to Scotland – when he considered walking away.
“I pride myself on being tough and resilient,” he says. “But that was a moment where I talked to Alex (his wife) in the kitchen and I asked myself ‘What am I doing this for?’
“I never mind being criticised for playing. Sometimes I agree with it and sometimes I think people don’t know what we’re trying to do, but it’s all opinions.
“This felt personal. I just thought what am I putting myself through for this? I just felt like I’d had enough and I’d lost that fight.”
Of course, he soon found that resolve and went on to achieve other highs. Much like his career, which saw the early frustrating years give way to countless successes, the book itself builds up to a crescendo. By the end, the final few chapters – unsurprisingly, given the perilous state of the game in this country in recent years – meander from cultural touchstone to cultural touchstone like a Welsh Forrest Gump.
Strike action, sackings, coaches coming and going. It makes for fascinating reading, with Biggar unerring about offering his thoughts on the numerous twists and turns in the game in recent years. The likes of Rob Howley and Neil Jenkins are painted as big influences in Biggar’s career, with the fly-half in particular quick to defend the former – who was often maligned by the Welsh public.
“Rob took some tough times, really rough criticism,” he says. “You ask any player what they want from a coach and they’d say clarity and clear instructions.
“What he went through was impossibly hard on him. He held his hands up and said he’d made a mistake. I loved working with him.”
On whether Howley could be the next Wales head coach, Biggar added: “I’m not quite sure Rob will want that job! Now Rob is back in camp, you’ll see Wales have a clearer identity on how they want to play the game.
“Rob has all the credentials to do the job. He had a tough time when he did it in 2013, but he ended up as head coach on one of Wales’ best ever days. So he’s got the credentials, but I’m not sure he’d be overly keen on it.”
Biggar’s relationship with Alun Wyn Jones is described as a “complex one”, with the pair “not necessarily the closest”, but two phone calls shared between the pair stand out in the book.
The first from Jones after Biggar’s mother Liz – to whom the book is dedicated – passed away, the second from Biggar after the second-row announced his retirement from Test rugby.
“I can’t say a bad word about Al,” says Biggar. “His record is incredible. What he did that day puts him up on a pedestal as a man, really. How are you supposed to phone someone after that news?
“But for me, what he did showed his real class. To be able to pick the phone up, I remember my wife Alex said how brave that was. The respect we had for each other was evident in that phone call. Me and Al had our ups and downs, but the respect I have for him is off the charts.”
However, it’s his relationship with Warren Gatland that will likely pique the interest of most readers, with Biggar describing them both as “stubborn, demanding and proud”. One occasion when the Wales coach hung Biggar out to dry in a newspaper column left him “angry” and “stunned”.
He knows, as he admits in the book, he was never one of “Gats’ golden boys”, but neither was their relationship the kind where things “blew up in heated arguments and people had to pull us apart”. Instead, as Biggar navigated the New Zealander’s mind-games, it was strictly “professional”.
“I think he knew which buttons worked for me,” Biggar says. “He knew that maybe provoking me would cause a better reaction. The respect I’ve got for him is off the charts for him and what he achieved.
“It’s not one where I’d be catching up with Warren five years down the line, but that’s probably the case for lots of players and coaches. You’d never have known mine and Gats’ relationship was like that. We were almost too proud to confront the issues we may have had.
“We maybe didn’t want the other one to think they had one over on them or was playing on their mind. The thing with Gats more often than not was what he didn’t say. I knew he was never going to be gushing about me in press conferences and on TV.”
While Biggar, who admits he wasn’t always the easiest to manage, is quick to point out that Gatland got it right more often than not when it came to his methods, he also didn’t always “understand the point of it”. “I remember in 2015 – and this may be because I was renegotiating a deal with the WRU and was stalling a bit – after the game against England, he was asked about my performance. By my own modest standards, I’d like to think I did quite well that evening!
“The response was basically about two good kicking performances from me and Owen. Clearly, he’s thinking if he goes overboard, maybe it gives me ammunition to go into the boardroom and demand more, or maybe he wanted to keep my feet on the ground.
“But after that performance, I think it wouldn’t have harmed anyone to say it was a brilliant performance. We were almost too similar in a way and couldn’t bring ourselves to find a bit more in the relationship.
“I always felt I had to be that little bit better to get a place in the team. You can’t complain though. I managed to get 112 caps and it worked. That’s why I wanted to be honest in the book.
“I could have just said Warren was brilliant and we worked well together. He was brilliant, but it’s more interesting for people to know that the relationship between him wasn’t one of real warmth or connection, but was one of business.”
In the book, Biggar questioned whether Gatland was right to go back to the Wales job for a second time, calling the initial appointment “a bit retrograde”. However, admitting that the return worked in the short-term with Wales’ World Cup run in France last year, he’s still optimistic things could improve long-term – even though the pressure is only likely to ramp up on his former coach.
“It’s difficult to know if it’s the right call in the long-term, as we haven’t quite got to the long-term yet,” he says. “Clearly, Wales are in a tough period right now.
“Warren knows the game inside out and he knows he’ll be under pressure if results don’t change soon. Anyone knows that. I think the autumn will be a lot more positive than people think.
“We’ve got a real good chance against Australia and Fiji. South Africa might be beyond us. If you pick up two wins, people start saying there’s a bit to build on. You have a bit more breathing space.
“I don’t know if it’ll be the right decision. If Wales lose the next 10 games, clearly the answer will be no. If they turn it around in the autumn and Six Nations, then the answer will be different.”
In terms of Pivac’s sacking itself, the book reveals that the exit of the former Scarlets coach – who had made Biggar Wales captain – and some of the “Machiavellian machinations” at play sat uncomfortably with the fly-half. A Zoom call between senior players and then-WRU CEO Steve Phillips, in particular, was a frustrating affair as it became clear Pivac’s fate was already sealed.
“Steve was beating around the bush,” he explains. “He clearly had something to say without saying. So I said just be up front and honest.
“I don’t know if I agree with the sacking. But I liked Wayne and respected him. He had challenges coming in after Gats. It was an impossible job for anyone to take, a little like David Moyes replacing Sir Alex Ferguson.
“The one thing I was disappointed with was that while there were things with contracts and no money being in the tills to pay players, they miraculously found the money to pay off three coaches and bring in new ones. That was the bit I found difficult to take. But from that point, when they were saying there was no money for contracts, finding so much of it down the back of the sofa was the moment when us as players questioned what was going on.”
Of course, that would soon come to a head, with the following year seeing the players threaten strike action ahead of the Six Nations clash with England. In the book, he admits he was “absolutely gutted” after a climbdown late in the week, adding he felt that some players were “duped by the WRU”.
“The one thing we said afterwards was that once you’ve shown your cards, you stick with them,” he says philosophically. “We can’t change things and we have to accept it once we’re dealt it.
“I had no real foot in either camp, other than trying to what I thought was right for Welsh rugby and the players. Rugby became a sideshow.
“Time will tell if what we accepted will become a good thing, bad thing or an indifferent thing. Similar to that, if the regions continue underperforming and are underfinanced, and the national team are struggling for wins, all of a sudden you think about if we fought for the right things or could we have fought harder.
“It was evident that at the start of the week, the boys were together. As the week went on, you only need a couple to split or be indecisive and then those were keen to stand strong were defeated a little bit by the end.
“Gats wasn’t in an easy position, being a WRU employee. Maybe, if someone like Gats gets behind something, things tend to happen. He probably distanced himself because of the position he was in and having a voice like his would have helped the cause.
“Looking back, I’m not sure whether it was the right idea or not. But lots of players said, it got to the point where enough was enough and something had to be done for players to feel they got something out of the deal.”
The Biggar Picture is published by Pan Macmillan (hardback £22) on 26 September. You can buy it on Amazon here now.
It is also available from WH Smith here, and Waterstones here.
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