Jamie Cudmore: A rough diamond carved into a Canadian jewel

After 'logging' one day as a 17-year-old, Jamie Cudmore went for a beer with his boss and some fellow loggers, as they did. "My boss played for a local club and asked me to come along and play." He played so well that his teammates chose him as man-of the match, and so he was obliged to fill his muddy boot with beer and drink it.

“Yeah, it’s a true story. It was back in Squamish,” he says of his home town in British Columbia, on Canada’s west coast. Cudmore took to the game’s physicality immediately, and enjoyed the post-match camaraderie. He had once illegally tackled an opponent running to home plate in a junior baseball game.

``In rugby you got rewarded for that kind of contact. So for me it was something I had been looking for all my life. You can run into people and people can run into you.’’

He has since admitted that “rugby saved me,” for by his own admission he had “had a bit of trouble growing up”. As a teenager he was an enforcer for a drug dealer in his home town and spent a year in a youth detention centre following a conviction for assault.

“In a sense, yes, rugby saved me. It gave me an outlet. Rugby got me on the right track. I’m certainly glad it did.”

Cudmore moved to New Zealand, and from then pitched up in Wales, playing with the Scarlets for one season in 2002-03. From there he took a chance with Grenoble, then in the ProD2, for two seasons. Such were his penchant for fighting and lack of knowledge of the rules that he accumulated plenty of red cards, but in 2005 Clermont saw something in this rough diamond, and carved him into a jewel. He has played over 200 games for Clermont, and at 37 he has signed up for an 11th season with them.

Throughout much of that time local journalists reckon he was usually the first name on the team sheet. He is most famously known in Ireland for his tete-a-tete with Paul O’Connell at Thomond Park in 2008, when the latter was yellow carded as Cudmore saw red.

They chatted that night and have played against each other three times since, with Clermont winning each time. Preparing for life after rugby, along with his wife Jennifer, Cudmore has produced their own wine label from the Auvergne, ironically called “Sin Bin”, with the chardonnay named ‘Yellow Card’, the Pinot Noir Gamay called ‘Red Card’, as well as a rose.

"A very nice wine," ventured Gareth Rees yesterday, who has the girth nowadays to suggest he is something of a bon viveur.

“It’s a good drop as well,” said Cudmore, enjoying the plug.

He is something of the joker in the Clermont and Canadian packs off the pitch, with a great sense of humour. After last year's meeting with Munster in Clermont, Cudmore revealed at yesterday's press conference in the Millennium Stadium that he had a gift for O'Connell, whom he described as world-class. "Last year after the Munster game in Clermont, I gave Paul a bottle of red and me a bottle of yellow. Kinda tongue-in-cheek for 2008."

Both O’Connell and Schmidt’s one-time coach at Clermont, Joe Schmidt, were warmly complimentary about Cudmore on Thursday. “If you don’t know Jamie very well you’d see him as a little bit of a reckless character, but he’s one of the nicest blokes you can meet. Any charitable event, any community service, Jamie is fantastic,” explained Schmidt.

“I have a lot of time for him as a character, and he manages to embody a lot of the values of rugby. I haven’t seen him suspended too many times since 2008. I just hope he gets tired early on and decides to leave the field of his own volition, but I can’t see that happening,” Schmidt admitted wryly. “No, that seems unlikely.”

Embracing amateur values was a particular compliment for Cudmore. “Definitely, because I think in rugby those amateur values are the basis of rugby itself; having a hard-fought game and then shaking hands and having the respect of the opposition after the game, and maybe a beer, maybe not.”

“But that’s extremely important, and if we lose those values moving forward into a more professional era, that will be a pretty sad day for rugby, so that’s a great compliment.”

Schmidt also said that he was more than an enforcer. He’d like people to see him that way. “Sure, no-one wants to be seen as a goon. And I think my record speaks for itself. Sure I’ve done some stupid things on the field, but a lot of people have too. I try and concentrate on my job, and do my best to help my team move forward. No, I don’t think I’m too worried about all the rest of it.”

Cudmore also welcomes the intended clampdown on 'diving' at this World Cup. "Definitely. Rugby is a game I love, and I think we're all in the same boat. We don't want to see it go that way, seeing guys roll around on the field feigning injuries. It's one of the things I hate about soccer. I actually really like soccer but I don't like the attitudes in it, so I'll do my best to ensure that doesn't arrive in rugby."

Cudmore's younger brother is actor Daniel Cudmore, who starred as the mutant Colossus in the X-Men films, while his other younger brother, Luke Cudmore, has played for the Canada U21 rugby team.

As well as Clermont, he is also the first name on the Cannucks' team sheet. Cudmore missed this summer's Pacific Nations Cup through injury, when Canada lost every game and a second encounter with the USA. He returned, as captain, and scored a try in the warm-up win over Glasgow Warriors and led them to a bruising one-point win over Georgia, as well as, admittedly, their thumping by Fiji.

But with Cudmore captaining Canada for the first time at a World Cup in his fourth tournament, they are sure to put up the good fight to compensate for their lesser skills’ set. “What we lack in those areas we definitely make up for with a lot of passion and a lot of aggression. As Kieran said, we’re aware of their qualities and we’re going to do our best to combat those, and put our qualities on display as well.”

Although Cudmore attributes his longevity to looking after himself and luck with injuries, at the end of last season he feared concussion on his last visit here in April, he was forced off in the first-half of last season’s European Champions Cup final with double concussion. Clermont lost without him, as they did against Stade Francais, with Cudmore fearing his career would be over and with long-term damage.

“I was extremely worried,” he admitted yesterday. “As rugby players you have injury issues all the time. You’re always pushing through some type of pain or something that doesn’t really work properly but when it’s your head you can’t push through anything. So it’s pretty scary to have an organ in your head that’s always good to go, and it says it’s not. No, it was very, very worrying.”

Thankfully, he has fully recovered, and having signed up for another season with Clermont is already taking steps toward becoming a coach. “I’ve coached throughout my playing career and I love it. I’ve coached our espoirs at Clermont more last season, and it’s something I want to keep on doing, wherever it takes me.”