This afternoon he will proudly become the 1,182nd player to play for Wales, but his cap number could have been 1,157 and should have been 1,165. If at first you don’t succeed, keep on coming back to try again!
The Scarlets back row man was first picked in the Wales squad in October 2020 ahead of the friendly against France in Paris and the Autumn Nations Series. Three days before the squad was due to meet up at their Vale of Glamorgan training base, he tore his hamstring playing for Scarlets in Glasgow.
Had he been fit for selection he could have made his debut alongside Louis Rees-Zammit at Stade de France. Rees-Zammit will win his 22nd cap today.
Fast-forward to last year, and a fit again Macleod got a second chance when he was picked in Wayne Pivac’s squad for the Guinness Six Nations. He was selected to start against Scotland and then ruptured his Achilles tendon in training three days before the game. That put an end to becoming Cap No 1165.
But sheer persistence, determination and good medical care has seen him come around again and given him the chance to make it third time lucky. There will be no prouder person than him when he becomes Wales’ 1,182nd international.
“It just wasn’t my time,” said a philosophical Macleod after his first injury. “I got my head stuck into my rehab in the gym and slowly I got back to feeling better than ever.
“When I was lying in bed at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel after travelling back from Glasgow, I was thinking things could have been slightly different. But if you take too much time to reflect on things like that you are never going to move forward.
“I knew then I had to get stuck into my rehab and be as positive as I could about it to ensure that if the chance came again, I was fighting fit to take it.
“My main aim was to be as professional as possible about it. I suffered quite a few injury blows when I was younger, so I’d built up a certain level of resilience. That’s not to say I wasn’t disappointed – it did hit me for six – but these things are going to happen.
“The S&C coach at the Scarlets was awesome and the work he did for me enabled me to return quicker than predicted. Getting back to where I was became the big motivating factor for me. I was determined not to slack off in any aspect.”
Then came his second blow. He had been told he would be wearing the No 6 shirt against Scotland, a country in which he had lived as a youngster and with which he has family links, but then came the Achilles injury.
“The ruptured Achilles was the big injury for him. Any injury that takes you out of your first opportunity to play for your country is big, isn’t it,” said Wales head coach Wayne Pivac.
“For that one I was standing about two metres behind him. He just accelerated from a standing start, and it was like someone had shot him with a gun. You heard the rupture, so it was a nasty one.
Josh Macleod during training
“I remember saying to him before he left the hotel that he should go away with the knowledge that this coaching group had selected him on his merits. I told him, ‘work hard now and you will be stronger for it – when you come back, provided you are playing well, you will get another opportunity.’
“He has gone away and worked very, very hard on his game. It is a credit to him and the people around him, because it is always the medical people that do the unseen work and the S&C boys that help these guys get back.
“It is just a pleasure to have him back on the playing field. He is a lovely young guy, and he works very, very hard.”
Whatever number cap he becomes, he will become the first Welsh player who was born in Monte Carlo. James Bevan, the first Wales captain, was born in St Kilda, in Australia, Graham Price was born in Egypt, Taulupe Faletau in Tofoa, in Tonga, and John Lewis Morgan in Patagonia. But Macleod will be the first Monegasque.
“My dad used to be a fisherman in the Outer Hebrides, but he moved to Monaco to skipper yachts. My mum went with him to work there as well and, all of a sudden, I came along. That’s how I was born in Monte Carlo,” Macleod told the WRU website.
“I don’t remember much of my time there, because we moved to west Wales when I was around five years old. Our great-grandparents were there, and it seemed the best place for my sister and I to be raised.”
Having learned his rugby at Crymych RFC and Ysgol Bro Gwaun, Macleod graduated to the Scarlets where he has developed into a top-class back row man who can cover all three positions. He had been due to wear the No 6 shirt against Scotland, but it will be at No 8 that he finally makes his debut.
Surely nothing can go wrong this time for the man who simply refuses to be denied!
This article appears in today’s Wales v Georgia match programme.
