Long-serving Carc still going strong

Ask any Welsh rugby player of recent history for their views on the man known to everyone as “Carcass” and you will be greeted with a warm response, such is the esteem in which Davies is held. As Wales physio, he has been a key member of the national set-up for nearly three decades and former players he treated such as Neil Jenkins and Martyn Williams are now colleagues.

He admits he “could well be more of a grandfather than a father” to many of the current players, but his rugby longevity is truly remarkable. No one has been part of more Wales Tests since 1990 than Davies, save for baggage master John Rowlands who started even before him in the late 1980’s.

So, first things first. How did Davies come to be known as “Carcass” or “Carc” for short?

“It’s something that emanates back to my junior school days,” Davies, now 62, said. “When a nickname like that hits you, it tends to stick! I always took it as being a reflection of my bony anatomy at the time. I was pretty skinny in school. Perhaps that’s why I’ve lasted as long as I have!

“I played in the centre in my first few years in comprehensive school. I wasn’t really comfortable there. I grew up in Maesteg and the weather was never great so it was a case of being half cold throughout the game. After three years I went to senior school and started playing flanker. We had a very successful team with JJ and Peter Williams as our teachers.”

Davies might now be known best for his work on the treatment table, but he had a fine playing career of his own and won three caps for Wales with his debut coming in 1981.

Perhaps it was no surprise he reached the top given the late, great JJ Williams helped mould him at Maesteg Comprehensive School.

“JJ was our gym master,” said Davies. “When he went on the Lions tour of 1974 I can recall him doing training runs in the lunch hour on the hockey field in preparation! When he left, his brother Peter who had been teaching in Cadoxton, moved to Maesteg and took over.

“That schoolboy era was a trigger for me. I suddenly thought if I really pursued rugby then there would be opportunities for me. After I finished at senior school, I played for Nantyffyllon before I went to college. I went down to Swansea one summer and that really was the start of things.

“I had to get the bus all the way to Swansea, leg it down Mumbles Road to the university playing fields, and then get the bus back. I put the hard yards in and fortunately things went well for me at Swansea. I joined in 1979/80 and had the opportunity to play for Wales in 1981.

“Like it is for everyone else it was a special moment.

“It was against Australia in Cardiff and my second cap was at Lansdowne Road against Ireland. They were incredible experiences. I was trying to take it all in, but on reflection I was so naïve.

“I’ve reflected when I’ve been to Dublin many times since as physio and have thought I would approach it very differently now.” Davies’ Test career was stopped in its tracks by a broken hand suffered in a trial match in Neath in 1982. There was one more Test, against Fiji in 1985, but his transition out of rugby had already begun. “I went to college in Cardiff and did my three years of physio there. I then worked in Swansea where I was playing,” Davies said.

“I started off in the NHS and spent 19 years there as a physio until the Wales job became full time when Graham Henry was coach. Like he did on the field, Graham pointed the way forward off it.

“I had joined the Wales team in 1992. I jumped at the chance even though it was all voluntary and part-time back then.” Since then, Davies has seen the highs and lows of Welsh rugby and everything in between. He toured twice with the Lions, most famously in 1997, and in 2001 too.

“If I cast my mind back to when I started, I’d have a little space in the changing room but only if I could find one,” Davies said. “I’d have a table if I was lucky, my bag on the floor, and I’d be taking my strapping out of the bag to strap the players as they came by. Now we prepare the changing room the day before a game. I was a one-man band to start with but now we have three physios and a doctor too. In the last 10 years the physical nature of the game has changed remarkably.

“The forces at the contact area have stepped up hugely and we’re getting injuries which reflect that. Concussion tops the list, but our players receive the best possible care.

“I started coaching when some of the boys in the squad now weren’t even born. Even those in their late twenties ask me when I started. I could well be more of a grandfather than a father to some of them, but I try not to think too much about that!

“If I look back over all the years, Graham was the one who really kicked the can down the road. He considered every player fit unless they had a bone sticking through their skin!

“He was old school. His preparation for games was terrific, his organisation and his analysis of previous games was spot on. He took things to a different level.”

Davies cites Wales’ 2000 development tour of Canada as one of his favourite memories and it is remarkable to think he has been part of all of the country’s best days since the early 1990s.

Wembley in 1999, the 2005 Grand Slam and the clean sweeps in 2008 and 2012 are all on his CV in addition to two fourth-placed World Cup finishes and that Lions series win in South Africa in 1997.

“I have been privileged to be in the Wales environment with so many great players and coaches. It has been incredible,” Davies said. “I think we’ve come down to days now as opposed to years left!

“I am closer to the end of my career than the beginning. I’m in a young, dynamic environment and you’ve got to be pretty active. I’ve certainly got less active over time! It has started to bug me a little bit that I haven’t been able to take to the field as much as would like to in the last couple of years because of the bodywork falling apart. I’ve found that frustrating, but that’s life.

“I’ve been very, very fortunate and you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth and accept it.

“I missed the 2019 Grand Slam because I had some surgery done on my feet. I got myself up and about again in time for the World Cup in Japan, but having just come back then I felt it wasn’t the right time to finish when Warren Gatland left.

“I’m still young at heart and want to keep cracking on.”