Interview: Gordon Ross, London Welsh stand-off

Henson arrival at Welsh was a slap in the face for Ross but Scot has turned the other cheek

IN the early 1990s Will Carling’s Harlequins team were involved in a feisty club game when someone decked the England skipper in the safety of the official’s blind spot. The referee halted the match and asked the culprit to step forward. In response one Harlequin wit pointed out the futility of the request: “Well Sir, it could have been any one of 29 players.”

The story came to mind when London Welsh’s new recruit Gavin Henson broke his cheek in a pre-season “friendly” against the Scarlets. The incident took Henson out of the game and will keep him sidelined for the next few months. It also opened the door for former Scotland stand-off Gordon Ross to make an unexpected return to premiership rugby at the grand old age of 34.

It’s just another chapter in a long-running saga that started way back at age-grade level when “Gogs” vied with Chris Paterson for the national No.10 jersey. He has played for clubs as diverse as Edinburgh, Leeds, Castres, Saracens and now London Welsh. Ross collected a record 23 points on his Test debut against Tonga way back in 2001, he won the man of the match award when Leeds beat Bath to the Powergen Cup in 2005 and he was pulling the strings when Scotland recorded a jaw-dropping 21-9 win over the Springboks at Murrayfield in 2002, their first for 33 years.

Despite those heroics against the Boks he was dropped the very next weekend for Gregor Townsend, so it’s probably fair to say that the little Edinburgh playmaker has had his fair share of knocks. With that in mind he took the news that Henson had been signed specifically to replace him at stand-off, er, on the cheek.

“Look, Gavin has been a good acquisition for the club since he joined,” Ross insists. “There are a few Welsh blokes down here that, like Gavin, can be a little, how can I put it politely, well, vain about their appearance. He looks after himself but he is a great professional. He talks to everyone, he has trained well in pre-season and he played very well in our match against Bath. He has helped the youngsters in the squad with advice and he has even told some of us older, more experienced players what we could do to improve our game.”

If Ross has his tongue in his cheek at this point he hides it well, although he does admit to being “a bit disappointed” when told that Henson had been brought in as a No.10, despite the controversial Welshman not having played there regularly for eight years.

Still, Ross will have the last laugh this afternoon when he takes his place in the London Welsh starting XV against Leicester, the best premiership team of the professional era. His family back home in Edinburgh will have split loyalties because brother David is turning out for Heriot’s against Watsonians in the club cricket Scottish Cup final.

But it is a wholly unexpected return to top flight rugby for Ross, not least because the off-field battle for promotion by London Welsh matched any effort by the players on the track.

Thanks to stringent requirements on facilities required by Premier Rugby Limited (PRL), Welsh’s traditional home at the Old Deer Park in Richmond was never going to make the grade. The club signed a deal with Oxford United to share their Kassam Stadium but PRL requires primacy of tenure and London Welsh never had this in Oxford. Their promotion bid, despite beating the Cornish Pirates both home and away in the play-off, was initially refused for that very reason, with relegated Newcastle Falcons handed a reprieve. However, it helps when your club chairman is one of the country’s leading barristers. Bleddyn Phillips is not known for backing down and he appealed the case. London Welsh were finally promoted, two months after the end of the season, when a three-man panel agreed that the strict criteria broke EU and UK competition laws.

“It was a weird time,” recalls Ross. “We got the news that we would not be promoted on the morning of the first of the play-off matches and we went out and played the best rugby of the season!

“It seemed to lift a weight off our shoulders. We were disappointed but we can only concentrate on things that we can control. The club appealed that decision. We got on with the job against the Pirates in the second leg and we let the men in expensive suits get on with their job in the appeal.”

This is the Scot’s fourth season with London Welsh. He played 31 matches last season and has been central to their success in gaining promotion. He argues that, while the club has always had talented players, some might not have had the hunger to play at the very top level. A few changes in personnel allied to the arrival of coach Lyn Jones has given Welsh the harder edge up front that they needed to gain promotion – but for how long? They were short odds favourites for the drop come May and that was before Henson’s injury.

“We were only given promotion two months after the season finished so yes, we are two months behind everyone else in terms of recruitment,” Ross admits. “Players who might have been available earlier in the season will have been snapped up already but that’s just the way it goes. We’ve got to crack on with things and we have just signed two big brutes from France [props Franck Montanella and Arthur Joly from Bourgoin].”

The season gets off to the toughest of starts for Welsh against Leicester Tigers at the Kassam Stadium where Ross could find himself facing a man 15 years his junior if George Ford makes an appearance off the Tigers bench.

At 19, Ford is the future of English rugby, a prodigious talent at age grade, the youngest man (or boy) ever to play premiership rugby (he was just 16) and it seems a matter of “when” rather than “if” he gets a call from England head coach Stuart Lancaster.

Come the 2015 World Cup, the England midfield should be a George Ford/Owen Farrell duopoly, so the coaches might as well pick the pair now and give them some experience.

Ross readily admits that he is used to playing against younger players these days – it could hardly be otherwise. Ford may be at the opposite end of his career from his opposite number but the teenager might want to pick the Scotsman’s brain in the bar after the game. Almost exactly one decade after he made his English premiership debut for Leeds, Ross is thoroughly enjoying his rugby, which is more than you can say for a lot of professional players.

“I am just trying to make the most of every moment now because the old saying about being a long time retired is true,” says Ross. “I had two or three seasons when I didn’t get much rugby and so the body is physically OK and the fitness is OK and I’ve never been the most physical of players. I am just happy doing my bit.”