The trying adventures of Captain Hook

Would the match against Wales today be cancelled because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic? he asked on the way to the Glenview Hotel in Co Wicklow last Sunday. Keith Wood had flown in from London, where the previous day he had played in the Tetley Cup final at Twickenham for Harlequins. Harlequins lost in the last minute of the game, and he said he was very depressed about it. He is quite involved with Harlequins: there is "unfinished business" there.

First impressions were of his boyish appearance. He looked younger than he seems on television, was sporting a black eye and had a kindness about him. The kindness is in the way he talks about others and in incidental considerate gestures. Without being asked or without making a point of it, he rubbed part of the passenger window of the car to enable me see through the left wing-mirror.

The unfinished business with Harlequins was also telling. His "defection" from the Munster side this season to return to the London club was viewed by many as a money trip. But it is more than that. He wants to win something with Harlequins because of a sense of obligation. He doesn't put it that way but it's clear from the way he talks about the club, about his friends at the club and his disappointment over the defeat by Newcastle Falcons.

He is getting married later this year to an Englishwoman he met in a pub in London. His life seems managed by his personal assistant, Hilary Burke, who is married to a former Irish and current Harlequins player, Paul Burke. Hilary makes all his appointments and arranges his schedule. She arranged that I pick him up at the airport and drive him to the Glenview, where the Irish team assembled in preparation for the game against Wales that was to take place this afternoon.

He is the youngest of a family of seven children, three boys and four girls. He was born in Limerick. The family lived for a time in Dublin after he was born and then moved to Killaloe, Co Clare, where the family home still is.

His father, Gordon Wood, was a famous rugby international. He played in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was part of one of the best front rows ever to play for Ireland, along with Ronnie Dawson and Syd Millar. Gordon also toured with the British and Irish Lions to New Zealand in 1959.

VB: Did you ever see your father play rugby?

KW: No, I never did, but Noel Murphy [the former Irish captain and later manager, who played with Gordon Wood in the early 1960s] has promised to get me some footage from the 1959 Lions Tour. Quite a lot of people talk to me about my father. This was especially so in Garryowen [in Limerick] which was Dad's club and which I joined when I left school. I was only 10 when he died and he had given up playing rugby by the time I was born. My memory of him is of a very big man with black, wavy hair. In fact he wasn't that big, only 510["] . I am bigger than that.

VB: How did you get involved playing rugby yourself?

KW: I went to a rugby school, Munchin's in Limerick. I wasn't much good, to be honest. I played at scrum half, centre, wing forward and finally hooker. I got on to the senior cup team in my last year and by then I was beginning to get a bit better. I was fortunate when I went to Garryowen that I had a good coach in Paddy Reid. He was incredibly enthusiastic.

We had a good under-20 side for Garryowen, and I soon moved up to the senior team. I sat on the bench [as a substitute] for Munster, I think in 1991 or 1992, and then sat on the bench for Ireland in 1993. This was while Terry Kingston was first-choice hooker for Munster and Ireland. Then I played for Ireland for the first time in 1994.

VB: What were the circumstances in which you were first picked for Ireland?

KW: Ireland was on tour in Australia in June 1994. I was picked for the team that played on the Wednesday before the first test, and that gave me an inkling that I would be picked for the test side. I was sitting at the back of a room when the team was being read out, and when you're name is called out for the first time, you get all goose bumps. Your head starts pounding, a very, very special time.

Actually, I get a buzz every time my name is read out for the Ireland side, it's something special. But back to that time in Australia: the first person to come over to congratulate me was Terry Kingston, whose place I had taken. Rugby is like that. It is one of the endearing aspects of the sport.

VB: Do you remember the first time you were dropped from the Irish team?

KW: I played [on the Irish side] until the following February or March and I got dropped after the Scottish game [of 1995]. I wasn't playing well for all sorts of reasons. My right shoulder had been causing me trouble and I had had surgery on it in 1994 and it wasn't right. But otherwise I wasn't playing well either.

I had kind of geared myself up for the fact that I was going to get dropped in favour of Terry Kingston. But when it did happen, it was a bit of a bombshell. But I was determined to get back. I was pretty depressed, but at that stage I was even more angry with myself. I got into great shape for the World Cup in 1995. Unfortunately, my shoulder gave out totally, and I didn't play for about 14 or 15 months.

VB: This was the time when you were much criticised for your throwing into the line-out. [The hooker, Woods's position, is the player who throws the ball into lineouts and is a crucial determinant as to who gets possession].

KW: Yes. I used to get a lot of stick for that. It was a big problem with my game at the time. I would think an awful lot of it went down to the shoulder probably, but I wouldn't have been a very good technician. That depends on practice, and because of the shoulder I could not practise that much. The more practice I did the sorer my shoulder got so I got into a bit of a Catch-22 situation.

Throwing the ball into the line-out is not as simple as it may seem. You go from one situation where you are running, and at my weight, 161/2 stone, running into somebody that's 18 stone at full tilt is an incredibly aggressive encounter. The adrenaline is bursting through the system, and then suddenly there's a stop of play. You have to be incredibly calm, composed, put a ball into a moving target 10 yards away, three or four yards up in the air. It is difficult, it's a very difficult skill.

VB: Do you call the shots at the line-out now?

KW: I do for the most part. It's my call in virtually every team I've played with. I think the hooker should call the shots. But you spend a lot of time before a game, with the No 10 primarily, to try and figure out exactly what plays you want in different parts of the field, depending on the situation of the match.

VB: For the current Irish team you would work this out in advance with Ronan O'Gara?

KW: During the week we would talk over what exactly the ideal situation is, and during the match we might change what goes on, dependent on how the opposition is defending us.

VB: Going back to your early time. I suppose one of the big successes of your career was that Lions tour in South Africa in 1997. Did you enjoy that?

KW: I loved it. It was a great opportunity at the time. Ireland weren't playing particularly well and didn't play particularly well in the 1990s, and it was an opportunity to play with a team at the start of professionalism that were already quite professional. It was brilliant at the time and it left me yearning for more. I learned an awful lot on that tour. The biggest thing I learned was that our [Irish] fitness was nowhere near the level that it needed to be.

VB: Was your fitness deficient at the time?

KW: Absolutely.

VB: Was it shown up on the tour?

KW: It wasn't shown up on the tour because of the style we played and the style the South Africans played. We played in a particular style, which meant there was more than one ball-carrier. You never were exposed. We were also very organised in defence [which lessened the exposure].

VB: Was it frustrating playing in an Irish team that was mediocre during the 1990s?

KW: I don't think it's frustrating to play for your country. There's very little frustration when you see the commitment that people will try and put in.

VB: How did it come good? How come this team is transformed?

KW: I would say there was a change of personnel. As simple as that. We ended up with the right mix for Irish rugby after the English hammering last year. We had a mix of some old heads who had vital experience we needed at important times in a match and we got in an awful lot of youthful exuberance.

Our fitness also has begun, not to peak, but improved out of sight, and this makes a huge difference. We also started to achieve a level of consistency, for which Warren [Gatland] is responsible. This means that we're much more of a team and we're not looking over our shoulder continuously. It's not a situation where if you have one bad game or you do something wrong in a match, you're dropped, which I think would have been the situation in times past.

VB: Of course, you've had great players coming into the side: Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Peter Stringer.

KW: The young guys that have come in have displayed great skills, great physical strength and speed, all the components that are needed for a successful player. We have been fortunate to get a group of them in at the one time.

VB: Who is the best player that you've ever played with or against?

KW: The best player I've ever played with is Laurent Cabannes, French open side. He just balanced a level of skills that I haven't got, anyway. He's retired now. I played with him in 1997. I remember playing with him once, and he went on to a ball and was swerving before he got possession of it. It was something quite remarkable, I've never seen anyone do it before or since.

Zin Zan Brooke [the former New Zealand No 8] was the best player of my generation, by a long way. But when I played with him and against him, he was just at the end of his game.

VB: He scored a drop goal in the World Cup semi-finals in 1995 [a very unusual feat for a forward].

KW: He scored two or three, I think, for New Zealand.

VB: Did a No 2 [the hooker's position] ever score a drop goal for an international side?

KW: Nationally, I don't know. I don't think so apart from my fluffed effort last week. I scored one in a premiership match against Northampton a couple of years ago but, no, I don't know of anyone that scored one. But I don't see why forwards should not be proficient in all aspects of the game. Why should a No 2 not score a dropped goal?

VB: You said in a recent interview that the scrum was really what rugby was about as far as you were concerned. The clash of the two front rows.

KW: Rugby is a tough confrontational sport. That's [the clash of the two front rows] where it's at its basics. It's the starting of the game again, it's the start with the collision. There's an awful lot of clarity just before that time because you're going straight in, and it's the whole variety of speed, aggression, power, intimidation - a lot of mental and physical intimidation and technique. There is an awful lot of components in just the art of hitting a scrum.

VB: Is it dangerous?

KW: No, not at that level. If a scrum collapses players know how to fall, and it is very rare for anybody to get hurt at a senior level. But at lower levels it can be dangerous, because players are not experienced and do not know how to protect themselves. But the scrum has been cleaned up a lot with the new laws.

VB: Do you talk when you're down in the scrum?

KW: There's an odd little bit of banter, sometimes a bit of a slanging match, it all depends. If you're totally on top of somebody, there might be a bit of, you know, chat. Not nice chat. It might be part of the psychological warfare that goes on, an attempt to intimidate the other fellow.

VB: Is there much violence? There used to be a situation where on occasion the second rows would come through and punch the front rows on the opposite side. Does that ever happen now?

KW: It rarely ever happens. I mean television has cleaned up the game, and rugby is a particularly clean game now.

VB: The Irish scrum seemed to be under pressure in the Italian game. What was going wrong?

KW: We definitely creaked in the Italian game. We had a couple of guys with injuries, and there was very poor preparation scrummaging-wise for that match. We knew it and we had to take a little bit of a gamble on it. But because of itineraries and matches from the previous weekend, it meant that preparation was poor. It improved an awful lot against France.

VB: As a full-time sports professional, you can't train all day, so what do you do?

KW: You don't train all day. You might in the morning for an hour-and-a-half or two hours and again in the afternoon. I try to go to bed in the afternoon to recover from a training session. I think recovery and rest are quite important. Then, of course, many of us play golf, and I read a lot and do a bit of business, PR business with a company Killian Keane [a Garryowen player] and myself set up. It's called Touch Wood.

VB: What books do you read?

KW: I've just finished Between Extremes by Brian Keenan and John McCarthy. I read the Harry Potter books a few weeks ago, which I found very interesting.

VB: How much do you earn as a rugby professional?

KW: I won't tell you, but anyone who thinks we rugby players are in the same league as football players are very mistaken. But I do earn a good income with Harlequins and Ireland. I am in the fortunate position of earning a good income from my hobby. I also make a bit from ad campaigns from time to time.

VB: Who are your friends in rugby?

KW: Well, I've a lot of friends in rugby across the board. In the Irish set-up, I suppose it would be Peter Clohessy, Anthony Foley [both from Limerick] and Rob Henderson. I live beside Rob in London. I'd have a lot of good friends, obviously, in Limerick in Paul Cunningham and Killian Keane. Over in Harlequins, I'd be very close to Jason Leonard [the English frontrow player], Gary Morgan, Rory Jenkins.

VB: Do you miss playing for Munster?

KW: I do. I miss the closeness of the fans [at Thomond Park in Limerick]. I miss winning matches every week almost without fail. I do miss the lads. Munster is very tight [the players are very close to each other], and I miss that. After every match with Harlequins, the first score I'm looking for is the Munster score to see that they've done well or that they've won. I think I would be as delighted if they won the Heineken Cup this year as if I were on the team myself.

VB: What's been your biggest thrill in rugby?

KW: That's an interesting word, thrill. Let me see . . . My biggest thrill was being part of the occasion when Brian O'Driscoll scored three tries against France in Paris last year. I found it utterly thrilling. O'Driscoll is a great player, and it was wonderful to see him do so well against a team like France in their home ground.

VB: Is it a liability being a hooker when you're captain [since the hooker can't see what is happening on the pitch for a lot of the time]?

KW: I don't think so. Captaincy is overrated. Five players on the team, Nos 2, 8, 9, 10 and 15 rule the roost. Any one of those five, the captain as well, but they're the guys that run the game, and it doesn't really matter who is captain. There is no need to psych up an Irish team, it already is, and anyway there's no point in overpsyching either. We have to be psyched up to play but still have enough composure that we can function properly and not give away silly penalties.

VB: As a player you are known for your ability as a runner, as somebody who can get through the game line, who has all-round skills unusual for a hooker. Is that at the expense of the more traditional role of a front-row forward in relation to rucks and mauls?

KW: I don't believe so. I think the game has moved on hugely. At times, it might have been the case. If I was doing the running, somebody else might have to do some of the rucking ball there. You'll do anything to try and get past the game line, so it's whatever situation can arise. Rugby has changed a lot, especially in the last five years. It doesn't really matter about the number on your back.

VB: What are you going to do after rugby?

KW: Obviously the PR company. This is maximising the commercial side of rugby that has happened around me as a person initially. But it is also about building up contacts for the time when I finish. I am also associated with a couple of new companies that are starting up, and there will be an announcement on this soon.

VB: How long more do you have in rugby?

KW: Two or three years, I don't see it lasting more than that. But I will evaluate that as times goes by.