Inside French Rugby: Confessions of a Kiwi Mercenary
John Daniell £14.99 Awa Press

The Observer Sunday November 11, 2007

No need to introduce you to some of the rugby books coming on to the market at the moment. At Extra Time, though, we prefer to uncover gems off the beaten track, and if it's a gem you are after, written by a bona fide writer who also happens to have been a professional rugby player, then we direct you towards John Daniell's Inside French Rugby: Confessions of a Kiwi Mercenary.
Daniell's title of two halves - one informative, the other irreverent - nicely captures the spirit of his book, which offers a keen insight into life as a professional player in this so newly professional of sports. He bases it around his last season as a player, which turned into a relegation fight for Montpellier in the seedy basement of the French championship, but it embraces all manner of issues and personalities facing the modern player, as well as his own nine-year career in the French game, which took in a Heineken Cup final with Perpignan in 2003.

First of all, about the author. No need for a ghost writer here - Daniell (above) is an
Oxford graduate in English literature. He is also 6ft 7in and has played lock for New Zealand Colts, England Schoolboys (bizarrely, he spent a year at Eton), Wellington Lions, Racing Club de Paris, Perpignan and finally Montpellier.

When union turned professional in 1996 he decided, aged only 24, to cash in on his prowess and became one of the first players to head to Europe for a career in the game.
'I am a mercenary,' he writes, by way of an introduction, 'and so are most of my friends. If, as
George Orwell said, serious sport is war minus the shooting, we are its soldiers, playing out make-believe conflicts in front of partisan crowds. We do this for money and for the love of the game, but mainly for the money.'

This sets the tone for a book high on honesty and humour that cuts through any amount of 'pride in the jersey' rhetoric. It lays bare the mechanics and insecurities behind a concern
whose protagonists, however passionate and frankly violent, are doing what they do because they need to make a living.

Not that the passion of rugby and in particular French rugby is not celebrated. Indeed, the star of the book is that twisted, violent, marginally insane world of club rugby across the water. Any reader unfortunate enough to have suffered an eye-gouging in his (or, God forbid, her) time will no doubt nod in recognition at some of the more colourful passages of violence. The rest are likely to find the graphic descriptions of what it is to have 'a dirty fingernail scrape along the back of your eye socket', well, eye-watering.
The roll call of colourful characters is delicious, from Daniell's Georgian teammate and nemesis, the wild bear Mamuka Gorgodze, who starred at the recent World Cup, to Marcel Dagrenat, the Machiavellian president of Perpignan. Somehow, French rugby is the only place in the world you could imagine them featuring.

Daniell depicts it all with a beautifully understated humour and affection, while still managing to shake his head in disbelief at some of the excesses of his confreres. You may have to delve behind the more prominently positioned rugby books to find this one, but it will reward you long after the clamour surrounding the others has drifted away on the wind.

FOOTNOTE

On Friday I carried a rave review for this title which had appeared in London's Daily Telegraph.

I e-mailed Mary Varnham, publisher at Awa Press, and asked her how the book was going and congratulated her on the UK reviews.

Here is her reply:

This is a great story as the book was rejected in earlier form by about 30 UK publishers.

We loved the manuscript (he can write terrifically well), did a smart edit, including some structural changes, and published – to almost universal silence in NZ.

We were disadvantaged by two things – first the Rugby World Cup was hogging the media attention, and second, Tana Umaga’s bio came out.

So our much more interesting (well, we think so) and beautifully written NZ book sank almost without a trace – even though we had strong publicity, great live interview of the author from Paris with John Campbell, Kim Hill interview, etc.

So we’re hoping the UK accolades wil give it fresh life.
Don’t you just love these publishing stories.

Bookman Beattie does love these publishing stories Mary. Nothing like a happy ending.