Ellery Hanley and his entourage swept out the door. Mike Ford watched the departure of the man voted the greatest British rugby league player of all time, a rueful smile crossing his face, as he walked the short distance to the adjoining room.
The words tumbled out before he’d taken the vacant chair. “I’m not sure why you want to see me after him,” casting a nod in the direction that Hanley had just disappeared.
Sitting across a desk, Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan and team manager Brian O’Brien stood to greet Ford. A second handshake within the hour and Mike Ford left the room as the Ireland rugby union team’s new defence coach.
The Irish management duo had travelled to England specifically to meet Hanley but had received a phone call en route, suggesting that they broaden their shortlist by one, to two, interviewees. He might not have been able to match Hanley the player in terms of accolades and achievements but Ford’s rugby league career was storied, both in England and Australia.
He joined the Ireland set up in January, 2002, designated to help the provinces with their defence structure, but Alan Solomons (Ulster), Declan Kidney (Munster) and Matt Williams (Leinster) had their own systems. "There wasn't a job for me there, so I was left to concentrate on the national team," Ford explained.
The narrow remit allowed him to commute from Oldham without uprooting his family but for someone used to walking through the front door every night, there was a fair amount of travelling with the Ireland job. Ford explained: “I was away quite a bit and my boys were missing their dad a bit and so I asked Eddie O’Sullivan if they could come to a week-long training camp in Limerick prior to the 2003 World Cup. He gave his permission.”
George (9) and Joe (12) were billeted in their dad's room for the week and during the day threw and kicked a ball, backwards and forwards, on the sideline as Ireland trained. When the session was over, the boys stayed behind to kick balls back to Ronan O'Gara and David Humphreys as the outhalves practised their place-kicking.
To reward their pint-sized helpers, O’Gara and Humphreys would give George and Joe “a kicking master-class for about 10 or 15 minutes,” Ford recalled. “The boys loved that and the fact Ronan and Peter (Stringer, who is George’s halfback partner at Bath) took them to get ice cream to give their dad a bit of a break every now and again.”
On Sunday, 13 years on from that Ireland rugby camp, George Ford, now 21, will wear England's number 10 jersey at the Aviva Stadium. He will be watched by his brother Joe, who now plays for the Sale Sharks, Mike, head coach at Bath, and mum, Sally-Ann. Just as well there are no pictures of the nine-year-old George running round in an Ireland jersey.
Starting role
George Ford will win his ninth cap in Dublin. He made his England debut as a replacement outhalf during last year’s Six Nations victory over Wales at Twickenham, coming off the bench on a further three occasions before he was handed the starting role against Samoa last November, one he has retained since.
He plays with a remarkable composure that belies his years but in some respects that’s what he’s been doing all his rugby life. He played for England schools as a 15-year-old, England under-20’s at 17, was the first Northern Hemisphere player to win the World Under-20 Player of the Year (2011) and made his professional debut in an LV= Cup match for the Leicester Tigers at 16 years and 237 days.
During his time playing outhalf with England schools they never lost and he helped the English under-20s to the World Championship final in 2011 – they had won a Six Nations Grand Slam earlier in the season – where he experienced his first defeat with England since March 2008 when playing for the England under-16s, losing the final to New Zealand.
When his dad, Mike, was defence coach – he looked after the Wednesday side – on the 2005 Lions tour, George and Joe travelled to New Zealand, they were afforded a bird’s eye view of training and matches. Mike took over as England’s Defence coach in May 2006, a position he fulfilled until 2011, and for part of that time George’s impromptu kicking tutor was Jonny Wilkinson.
When the youngest Ford was first introduced to an England camp by head coach Stuart Lancaster, not to play, but as an acclimatisation process, his father Mike recalled: "He'd (George) been in about eight times from my time with England and the next time I saw Stuart I was going to have a laugh and say: "he's been in [an England camp] more often than you have."
George’s pathway to his current position on the national side has long been heralded, based on his obvious talent – he brings flair, vision, distribution, game management and kicking skills of a very high calibre – but it might have taken a slightly different route because his first love, and the game he first played, was rugby league.
Mike recalled: “I used to bring the boys down to training (Castleford and Oldham) on a Friday night because they had no school on a Saturday morning. They’d be there throwing a ball around until it was time to go home.” George would have been four or five.
As a nine-year-old he once scored eight tries in a local derby match against boys who were older and bigger and he didn't have far to look for his first hero as Britain rugby league legend Paul Sculthorpe lived next door and used to throw a ball around with the Ford boys. George was rarely seen out of his St Helens shirt with "Scully" emblazoned between his shoulder blades.
Rishworth School in Yorkshire was where the youngest Ford started to play rugby union and it was the school's head of rugby Andrew Thomas, who, when discussing his former pupil in a newspaper interview ahead the outhalf's first start for England against Samoa last November, gave an insight into George Ford the person, as much as Ford the player.
Thomas said: “It was clear he would make it, not so much because of his skills-set but because of his personality. More than anyone I have come into contact with, not just in an educational sphere but in all walks of life, there is no doubt that he would succeed because he was so driven.”
It’s an assessment that Mike Ford recognises: “First and foremost he is obsessive with the sport. From about the age of nine, he would have his bag packed the night before a game. If the team had to meet at nine, he’d want to be there at eight, just to make sure that there was no chance of being late, no matter what you encountered.
‘That attitude’
“He would get very upset if the team lost. He treated every game as the most important one, always had that attitude from the time he was a kid. He doesn’t play golf or anything like that so his down time is spent watching rugby. His mum (Sally-Ann) watched my career for 20 years but she won’t talk rugby with him.
“She has a fantastic relationship with him, will take him shopping, go anywhere and talk about anything . . . except rugby. Sometimes I think his mum and his girlfriend keep him up to date with what’s going on in the world.”
Words like character and dedication creep into any conversation about George Ford. His prodigious talent can occasionally distract from less initially visible qualities, one of which is his match temperament. He is not the finished product. There are edges to be smoothed but what is striking and something that elevates him as a player is his mental resilience.
There are several examples through the years the most recent of which came in a man-of-the-match performance against Wales in the Millennium stadium earlier this month. He missed a few chances with the placed ball but when the pressure was at its zenith he stepped up to land the decisive penalty.
If he’s charged down or misplaces a pass, he’ll be front and centre, next time he’s called upon. His ability to compartmentalise mistakes and lock them away during a match requires a strong mind.
Mike Ford explained: “He has the strength to focus on the next play to the exclusion of everything else. He rationalises what went wrong, what he needs to do to make sure he’s on the money the next time and he doesn’t let things affect him. When he misses a kick he’s the type that’s pining for the next opportunity and you saw a little bit of that against Wales. He won’t back off. That’ll be the case [next Sunday], he’ll keep going at Ireland.”
The man he'll oppose directly is Lions and Ireland outhalf Jonathan Sexton but there is a closeness between the pair that has nothing to do with proximity on the pitch. They share an attitude according to kicking guru Dave Alred, who tutors both players having previously worked with Jonny Wilkinson.
He admitted in a recent interview: “To me attitude is everything. Jonny (Wilkinson) has got it, Sexton’s got it and George has got it. It is the business of being determined to get things right when learning is a bit ugly. It is a steeliness.”
The outcome
Alred also demands his pupils focus on the process rather than the outcome, so that they can cope with missing a kick or two during a match. “The mindset should be more about ‘I want to get this kick, rather than I must not miss it’. That’s what we work on off the pitch, language and self-talk.
“I do the same with Sexton. A few years ago I had a bit of a ding-dong with the then Ireland coach who said to Johnny: ‘if you miss a kick then Ronan (O’Gara) will come on.’ We changed that around to say: ‘I am going to kick every kick to keep O’Gara on the bench.’”
Mike still embraces his days with Ireland and the friendships they spawned. Shane Byrne, Professor Arthur Tanner (Leinster), Ailbe McCormack (former Ireland physio), Niall O'Donovan, Anthony Foley, Eddie O'Sullivan and Brian O'Brien have all sent texts in recent weeks, congratulating Mike and George. They might dry up for a week or so or may take a different tack.
He’ll oversee Bath’s game on the Saturday before boarding a plane for Dublin with Joe and Sally-Ann and take a little time to catch up with old friends. They’ll want George to play well but not too well and maybe, just maybe, get to see him in that Ireland jersey, all those years later. Post match of course.
