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Ollie Thorley: 'I’m hitting well over 10 metres per second'
By Liam Heagney
Who says you can’t teach an ‘old’ England winger new tricks? After weeks of pre-season fine-tuning, the recently turned 28-year-old Ollie Thorley is ready to let rip for a 12th campaign in the Gloucester colours he has long adored.
He was just a teenager when he debuted in 2013, partnering Mike Tindall in the Cherry and Whites midfield in an Anglo-Welsh Cup game. Now he’s a man on a mission, claiming he has never felt as good and hoping that a consistent show of speed at Kingsholm and around the other English club grounds might turn a conversation with Steve Borthwick earlier this year into a much-desired international squad recall.
As it stands, he is part of the one-cap club, players who got a single chance and no more. It was October 2020, at the height of the behind-closed-doors return to rugby, when Thorley received his baptism from Eddie Jones, getting subbed on when England clinched that year’s Six Nations title with a win away to Italy. He hasn’t featured since, a peculiarity he now wants rid of.
“Physically I’m in the best space I have ever been. I am not just saying that – I genuinely am physically in the best place I have ever been,” he insisted, chatting with RugbyPass on the deserted West Stand terrace following another afternoon’s training ahead of the 2024/25 season which starts with next Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership visit of Saracens to Kingsholm.
“I don’t think I have shown people how quick I am on the pitch and that is what I want to do this season, I want to show my speed. I have consistently been hitting very high scores on the GPS. I’m always quick in games but I want to show it to people now.
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"Our (new) game plan will hopefully facilitate that, but it is also on me. I still want to play for England. I have had one cap so far. I felt like I didn’t get a proper chance to show what I can do at international level but if given the opportunity, I’d relish it and believe I’d thrive. That’s the goal.
“To a certain degree, I feel when I was in England camp I was still learning the game a bit. I was still quite raw. A very good athlete but still learning the game. My rugby IQ now is a lot higher than it was then. I still feel like I didn’t get a proper chance and that’s all I would like really. I’ll put my hands up, the other wingers that have come through, (Immanuel) Feyi-Waboso, (Tommy) Freeman, have done very well.
"I know that the competition is stiff but I do believe I can offer something. Obviously I have got to put it on the field this season and let my rugby do my talking, that is ultimately the main thing. Let rugby do the talking. That is always a goal in the back of my mind.”
So where has the Cheltenham-based flyer seen recent improvements in his prep? “Like metres per second, I’m hitting well over 10 metres per second so I’m up there with the quickest. I am a bit of a bigger guy as well obviously so I just want to show that on the pitch. I’m actually a bit heavy at the moment and I can still hold it. I’m about 100 kilos; 100 kilos and fast, that’s where I want to be. I have been there for most of pre-season. Definitely, physically the best spot I have ever been in.
“I feel across all sports, people are seeing that often people’s peak is later. For me, when I came through I was quite raw; I feel like I am now entering my peak. I feel like last season, from a personal perspective, there were lots of positives.
"So my goal is to keep building on that and over the next three, four years, see where I can get to. I really hope that is England but if it’s not that’s it. It’s not up to me but that is my goal. I did speak to Steve towards the end of last season. There has been contact.
“I know what Steve wants from his wingers and watching the England games, seeing how the wingers are playing, I can learn from that as well. Like I said, I have got to let my rugby do the talking. That’s always the biggest thing. If you are doing it on the pitch, those conversations will start flooding in.
"I firmly believe that rugby coaches have to look far and wide because rugby is an attritional game. Players get injured a lot unfortunately, so you have always got to have five, six guys on the roster and I would obviously love to be one of those guys.”
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Sprint coach Margo Wells has been an inspiration. “Still working with Margo, doing lots of speedball and things. She has been brilliant giving me the body I need to go and perform on the pitch. Now I need to do the training justice and go and show that even more.”
Thorley’s thirst to get better is never ending and even a snippet from new Gloucester signing Christian Wade has been illuminating in recent weeks. “To be fair, players like Danny Cipriani and a few others said, 'You have got to be on it off the pitch and outside the club'.
"I met Margo and she has been fantastic for me in terms of helping me take things to another level, be more professional in all areas of life. It’s something I have done now for six, seven years and it’s amazing the different things you can learn from outside of this environment. Obviously this environment is great but there are so many other things you can learn from people in different sports.
“Even listening to Christian Wade and what he has learned from NFL, it’s completely different stuff and it is transferrable skills. I try and keep an open mind. One of the things is how they control their feet, so we did this footwork drill.
"It’s hard to describe but it was a pitter-patter footwork drill to control your movements in smaller spaces and it was completely different from anything I had done before and then I translated it into approaching a breakdown and it was actually really helpful. So it is small things like that, small little minutiae like that is transferrable.
“The coaches take a scientific approach to managing load, there is a whole heap of stuff that I try and do,” he added, explaining his various peak fitness adaptions over the years. “A recent one was how can you use breathing to benefit your performance, things like that.
"Whether that is regulating being calm on the pitch, whether it’s trying to manage your oxygen levels on the pitch… there is always new research coming out, always ways to get a bit better which is one of the things I love about sport. It’s evolving and you have always got to stay on your game.
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“I have a lot of things I like to do off the pitch. There is my whole pattern directly related to rugby, I am always doing recovery stuff. It’s one of the key things about playing, you have got to be fit, you have got to be fresh for games.
“So a lot of ice baths, a lot of massage, a lot of sauna, a lot of breathing exercises, meditation. A whole plethora of different things that I do off the pitch just to calm the mind and then I like to read as well, spend time with my girlfriend. Those are the main things.
"I have just finished The Molecule of More. It was recommended to me by a friend, Dr Gary Bell. It’s from a psychiatry perspective about dopamine. It’s really interesting, exploring the role that dopamine plays in society in a whole plethora of different contexts.”
Mention of context, Thorley is a veteran of the England age-grade team that won the 2016 World Rugby U20 Championship, beating Ireland in the final in Manchester and going on to forge a respectable professional rugby career for himself.
The English are finally world champions again at that level, Mark Mapletoft’s class of 2024 triumphing in Cape Town with an XV featuring Gloucester representatives in full-back Ioan Jones and tighthead Afolabi Fasogbon. Has he any advice to help them kick on in the adult game?
“It does feel like a lifetime ago (winning in 2016). It’s awesome seeing an age-group team do well and the one thing that struck me was you could tell how much it means to the guys on all the Instagram stuff, they were buzzing.
"Before every game, they were pumped and that is what you want 20s to be, you want that passion to be oozing through and you could certainly see that. It has been good talking to Ioan and Afo, they said it was an amazing experience in South Africa and they have come back better players. Hopefully they can kick on.
“The core principles stay. Sometimes guys who make it at 20s can become complacent. It’s quite an easy thing, you feel like you are the bee's knees at that level and then you come into the adult game and realise there is this whole other big step up.
“Some guys can make that step easy, some guys it takes a bit more time so it’s basically from my experience and seeing a lot of those guys come through having come through myself is don’t be complacent because you are going to have to be resilient.
"U20s is hard but it is also easy compared to adult rugby. I'm really excited. Both Ioan, Afo and other guys like Rory Taylor, who was unfortunately injured for the World Cup, I'm excited to see what they go and do. They are great lads off the pitch and I'll hopefully play with them soon.”
It’s a hugely important season in George Skivington’s Gloucester tenure. Last season, his fourth full campaign in charge, produced a desultory ninth place in the Premiership and while the upside was a Premiership Rugby Cup title, the club’s first silverware since 2015, and an appearance in the Challenge Cup final, much better is demanded this term.
An air of optimism exists they can succeed. “What happened last season, it’s done now so it’s a completely fresh start, a different team,” suggested Thorley. “We have got loads of new guys coming in. There is obviously continuity but it’s a really different team and I like the fact that we have a fresh challenge coming up. It’s exciting.
“(Gareth) Anscombe, Tomos (Williams), Christian have arrived. We have a really good blend of young talent coming through with some older heads, more experienced heads coming in as well which will really benefit the whole squad. Just like learning from their experience, in games having the calming presence of an experienced player. It’s awesome seeing it. I’ve been here for a while now. Myself and Lewis (Ludlow) are probably the two longest serving players now, so it’s amazing how quickly that happens.
“George has said it in the media, we want to do better in the Prem so that will be our big focus. You always want to win every game, but we want to make sure we are on it when it comes to the Prem… I want the ball in my hands. Christian Wade wants the ball in his hands.
"All those dangerous guys want the ball in their hands and we didn’t get enough of it last year for one reason or another. We had to simplify our game plan and it was effective but we want the ball in hand and cause some damage. That’s the plan, to get people off the seats. That’s where it is all about.”
Showcasing exciting rugby is Thorley’s thing. “It’s an awesome game to watch. I mean, I went to watch the hundred cricket at the Oval. Is it the hundred? I don’t know the teams. I find cricket really boring but I actually quite enjoyed it because of how they made it a spectacle, and rugby is a far better product in my far humble opinion. I’m a bit biased. Rugby has got an opportunity to do that with a really great product.”
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