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Why Alex Waller's career ended 'pretending I needed the toilet'
By Liam Heagney
The now-retired Alex Waller has revealed how excruciating being on the sidelines felt during the conclusion of last Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership final. There were 52 minutes gone when Northampton decided to make a change at loosehead, swapping the starting Waller for replacement Emmanuel Iyogun.
That left Waller watching on helplessly as 14-man Bath took the lead and it left the Saints relying on a late converted Alex Mitchell try before bagging their second league title in 10 years.
The 34-year-old, who was the crucial try-scorer in the 2014 decider, had now explained what it was like looking on from the sidelines, revealing that the tension was so bad that he headed away down the tunnel on a number of occasions pretending he needed to go to the loo so that he didn’t have to watch.
Speaking on the Northampton club website, Waller said: “We did not make easy work of it. It was not our best performance, but a win’s a win at the end of the day. In a couple of months, people will just remember that we won.
“Bath are a great team and to go down to 14 men and keep in the fight shows the quality and depth they have in their squad. It was tense on the bench. I had to take myself away to the changing rooms a couple of times for a few minutes pretending I needed the toilet just to get away from the action. We didn’t make it easy.”
As he said, a win’s a win and the 25-21 victory will be remembered in the long run as a fitting farewell to the departing Waller and two other fellow pack stalwarts, the France-bound duo Courtney Lawes and Lewis Ludlam.
“It is very surreal. It is a fairytale ending for me on a completely selfish note. To finish my career winning the Premiership with a bunch of amazing blokes who I have been through a lot with. I have sort of bookended my career winning Premiership trophies. It’s not too bad a way to finish.”
What eventually got Northampton over the line, according to Waller, was the amount of times this season they encountered backs-to-the-wall situations, adversity that helped them to cope when struggling and going behind to man-down Bath.
“The underlying confidence in the squad is probably what got us over the line,” he reckoned. “We had faced that adversity a couple of times this season – being behind against some big sides like Toulon, and we had a big dance at Twickenham against Quins, the semi-final against Leinster at Croke Park.
“We have had a bit of experience with big stadiums and big games so that’s probably what got us over the line today. Bath were a credit to themselves and pushed us in a lot of areas, but we were good enough to get over the line.”
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Latest Comments
At least he no longer writes articles related to the All Blacks. The suggestion with these ratings is that the ABs have a lot more left in the tank... Which is nonsense, this was a nail biter of a test of the highest standard and both sides we're going at it hammer and tongs. As is often the case in rugby, the team that managed to score the most tries won.
Go to commentsWho, the ABs? Oh for sure, they punched above their weight in that cup, but also had got a lot better than anyone had thought they could (except perhaps SAn's) well out from the WC (to the point where you were disappointed not to win it). Then they've probably done the most post analyzing of their RWCs in the past, due to all their failures, they knew how to maximize their itinerary and that first game against France was of less importance than any one off test was against. At least a test like this weekends had meaning, even if it's not surrounded by any overarching point. That first match in the RWC though, along with the Ireland v SA game, were totally meaningless. Everyone already knew they were only going to be up against each other, and that's why NZ were only at around 70% during it.
So you're quite right, it was pointless to make as much out of it as this author did. The same pretty much goes for 2 years prior as well, because that's obviously before the above happened. NZ were at least trying very hard in that game, and although it needed some Ntamack magic at the end, France looked pretty comfortable, or should I say, NZ very poor. That picture obviously turned around this year, but still with that fabulous French flair scoring some crazy tries to win it again.
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