The Breakdown | Jamie Roberts: ‘It was all about winning for Warren – no room for sentiment’


Former Wales and Lions centre discusses his curt relationship with Gatland, hatred of the WRU’s 60-cap rule and rugby’s ‘monotony’

Rare indeed is the Welsh rugby autobiography that reveals how a corner of Adolf Hitler’s desk ended up in the family home in Newport or details how the author drove Lana Del Rey around Monte Carlo in a Rolls-Royce Wraith after she and Bono had watched him play paddle tennis with Prince Albert of Monaco. If Jamie Roberts achieved plenty on the pitch, few modern players have a wider-ranging story to tell off it.

We have not even mentioned playing guitar on stage with the Manic Street Preachers in Australia during the 2013 Lions tour. Nor Roberts’s impressive academic credentials as a qualified doctor and Cambridge University postgraduate student with four degrees. There are players with a hinterland and then, in a completely different league, there is the nearest thing professional rugby has to a renaissance man.

Continue reading...