Singing is a
major Welsh tradition, as a nation we are renowned for our voices and before we
left for New Zealand we decided as a group that we would make it a feature of
our trip.
I think the
idea came from Warren Gatland, who wanted us to conform to custom in his home
country and have an answer to the traditional Maori welcome, which has been
such a feature of the World Cup.
We are trying to be proud of our national culture.
Before we
left for New Zealand,
we were given two hymn sheets with the words to Ar Lan y Môr and Delilah, and
when we first arrived in Auckland we gave our first public recital to the group
of Maori dancers who were at the airport to greet us.We have also sung at a
school in Wellington and the Waitomo Caves in King Country and I think our
performances have been well-received!
We tend to
practise our singing on the bus on the way to and from training and then have
an official recital every Thursday night in our team room.
We are fined
$20 if we don’t bring our hymn sheets with us. Unfortunately I lost mine back
in Wellington but thankfully I know the words and have been blagging my way by
bringing a couple of A4 pieces of paper with me instead.
It is fair
to say that there is quite a range of singing ability in the squad. Alun Wyn Jones
and Craig Mitchell may be two big lumps of forwards but they both have great
voices and are comfortably our best singers.
I haven’t
sung in a choir before but I think I just about hold my own. Jamie Roberts is
probably the worst singer in the group. The management have to take part as
well and they are not the best.
We normally
sing Ar Lan y Môr and Delilah at every session but the boys have been on to
YouTube to find the lyrics to other songs such as Lady in Red and Summer
Nights.
The sessions
pull everyone together. It is great fun. It is like a karaoke night.
We have a
laugh and a joke and that is half the battle. If you are enjoying yourself, you
tend to play better. The singing also keeps our feet on the ground and during
our choral sessions we tend to give each other a bit of stick and dish out
fines.
We also have
a special tour song which we sing in the changing room after our matches. It is
a dance tune called Big Bad Wolf. It is brilliant and is a loud tune. We sing
along to the lyrics and then howl together during the chorus. Hopefully we will
be doing it again on Saturday night to celebrate a victory over France.
Roberts, or
The Doc as we call him, got a bit of stick at choir practice on Tghursday
night. On Tuesday we went to Les Mills’s gym in Auckland to do a weights
session and the All Blacks squad were already there. Jamie went over to Sonny
Bill Williams and it looked to us like he was asking if he could have his
photograph taken with him, although he obviously denies it!
The boys gave
him loads of stick and we got hold of a photograph of them talking together and
blew it up to poster size to give him more ribbing.
Fair play to
Jamie though, he can do what he likes because he is delivering on the pitch.
It was funny
seeing the All Blacks players up close. We were eyeing each other up a bit and
looking at who was lifting the heaviest weights.
Bradley
Davies said, “Right, I’ll show them”, got the boys to put 200kg on the bench
press and got someone to take a picture. He can only lift 140kg so he got a
couple of boys to help him out of the shot so it looked like he was lifting it.
It was hilarious.
The All
Blacks have some strong boys to be fair but I think we matched them.
I reckon we
are the two fittest squads in the tournament. Psychologically we are in a good
place and have great confidence in our fitness. Everyone else seems to be
believing it now and talking about it.
I think we
can do the job on France. Ireland were a great side and we managed to shut them
down and stop them playing. The boys are confident and ready to go but the key
thing is that throughout all the hype about us reaching the semi-finals, we
have kept our feet on the ground. The singing has certainly helped that. Let’s
just hope we have something more to sing about on Saturday night.
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