Former Wales forward Andy Powell has announced his retirement at the age of 35 after failing to overcome a recent knee injury. Graham Thomas looks back at the high-wire ride of a career that took Powell from Newport to Wales, to the Lions, to Merthyr, but with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
So, farewell Andy Powell and thanks for the memories of a career colourful enough to make many others look grey by comparison.
For many, Powell will forever be remembered as the chauffeur under the stars in the M4 golf buggy ride of doom back in 2010 – an incident that cost him his place in the Wales team, a 15-month driving ban, and any hope of honorary life membership at the Vale of Glamorgan resort and hotel.
But there was far more than that, including a period when he was the most powerful back row forward in Welsh rugby and by some distance the most popular player amongst the squad during the 2009 Lions tour to South Africa.
The England players, in particular, loved him and would hush the team room before seeking his withering one-line verdict on whatever coach’s briefing session they had just endured. He was an updated Bobby Windsor, blended with a large dose of Tommy Saxondale.
Coaches and team managers sometimes left unsure of his whereabouts over the years would normally head for the nearest race meeting.
Some of the rumours about Powell in his younger days were so bizarre they defied reason, never mind verification. Like the time as a 21-year-old when he was supposed to have driven from his new club Beziers back to Wales to fetch his TV set in the hope it would pick up British programmes.
Or during his short spell with the Scarlets, when he was said to have insisted on training topless because he felt their shirts restricted his rippling muscles.
The buggy jaunt was a throwback to the amateur era when players would drink first and ask questions of themselves much, much later. Despite all the finger-wagging and tut-tutting, nobody died – although, of course, they might have done if the cart had somehow collided with a car on the hard shoulder in the dead of night.
If Powell had been an English rugby player, drunkenly clambering up the ancient walls of some Oxbridge college, then it would have been called “high jinks”. But he was Welsh, it was the M4, and so even though questions over who takes responsibility for professional rugby players post-match were quickly forgotten – except by the angry Cardiff Blues – Powell was kicked out of the Wales squad and didn’t return for nine months.
The incident slightly pre-dated the global conquest of Twitter. So, the news was delivered old-style by John Inverdale on a Sunday afternoon and he needed all his experience to deliver it in sombre tones, even though his eyes betrayed his internal belly-laugh.
Powell won 23 caps in total and was part of the last Wales team to beat Australia in 2008, but arrived just too late to make the Grand Slam team earlier that year.
In fact, there were many times during his career when it seemed as though Powell’s potential – and crowd-pleasing status as a rampaging ball-carrier – would be unfulfilled.
He was signed by Leicester in 2004, when they were still amongst the very strongest teams in Europe, and was seen as a big part of their future. He was so homesick, he managed just one match before returning to Wales.
It was at the Cardiff Blues that Powell finally started fulfilling the huge promise he had shown during his early breakthrough years with Newport. Shoulder injuries disrupted his progress, but he finally won his first cap for Wales in 2008 when he was 27.
He was not a skillful ball player in the mould of Taulupe Faletau – whose all-round class would later push Powell down the pecking order. But for a period when Wales lacked a dynamic, go-to ball-carrier, Powell’s athleticism suited them well.
He was deservedly picked for the Lions tour a year later, but even though most opponents had been squashed by him in that season, he picked the wrong fight with an insect in the opening days of the tour and a venomous bite on his hand ruled him out of the first match.
In the end, Powell did not make the Test team, although his form in the later matches suggested he might have edged out Ireland’s Jamie Heaslip.
He moved on to play for Wasps where the highs were mixed with the low of a drunken bar brawl. Then, to Sale, where the force of his hand-off was matched by a forceful hand gesture to Bath fans that cost him a £5,000 fine.
There followed a spell in rugby league with Wigan Warriors, before a return to where it all began at Newport, when he joined the Dragons.
The last stop was Merthyr, a club that stands outside the establishment, is unconventional, ambitious, but is happy in its own skin and entirely without artifice – a fitting final destination for their now former No.8.
After announcing his retirement, Powell issued a statement, saying: “I’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce my retirement from playing professional rugby.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my career and would like to thank every club I have represented and every player I’ve played with and against.
“I’ve made friendships that will last a lifetime and appreciate all the support I’ve had throughout my career.
“I look forward to spending time with my young family and embarking on the next chapter of my life.
“It’s been a hell of a ride too….autobiography, watch this space!”