Morgan: ‘Retaining Welsh language is important to me’

As First Team Athletic Performance Coach for the table-topping Bristol Bears, the former Pontypridd fullback is now helping the West Country club’s scintillating players reach new heights.

“There is a huge buzz around the club at the moment,” says the 44-year-old, who was once rated by Steve Hansen as one of the best fullbacks in the world game. “I arrived halfway through Bristol’s first season back in the Premiership, but straight away the theme wasn’t about simply staying up: it was ‘how far can we finish up the table?’ It’s just gone on and on from there.”

Given his role, Morgan has been particularly thrilled by the brand-new Bears High-Performance Centre, the club’s new training facility in Abbots Leigh. “It’s a joy to go to work there every day,” he says.

After more than a decade working in the high-performance environment – most of which was spent with Ospreys – Morgan is better placed than most to assess how far the game has come on since he first started playing.

“The year I went from youth to senior rugby was the year game went professional in 1996,” says the former Dragons and Swansea man. “I was in uni doing a degree in electronics at the time. My initial education was as far away from S&C as possible, but I’d always had a really big interest in it and felt it was a possible avenue to go down once I’d retired.

“Coming towards the end of my career, I did a part-time Masters in Physiology in order to get an academic qualification, on top of acquiring some practical qualifications.” His final year on the pitch saw him hold a dual role as player/fitness coach with Neath, before the opportunity came up with Ospreys, where Morgan’s former fitness coach with Wales, Mark Bennett, was looking for someone to join his team.

“At this moment in time I’ve got a dual role with Bristol, wherein I help rehab all the injured guys as well as looking after S&C for the backs,” explains Morgan, who had a year as head of physical performance for the Georgian Rugby Union between Ospreys and Bristol.

Working both sides of the spectrum – with players who are either fighting-fit or returning to play – is a stimulating challenge for him. “Rugby is basically a year-long season now. You’re not just continuously trying to improve players physically, but you’re getting them ready for the next game and the game after.

“When guys get injured I look after them, managing them from the period of their initial injury to getting them back playing again. Having been a pro player myself, I’ve got that insight into both what it’s like to play regularly, and to be injured regularly. It’s very rewarding when you help someone return to play and do well.”

He says the rehabilitation phase can be just as much psychological as physical. “There’s a danger that players with long-term injuries can sometimes feel divorced from the rest of the team if they’re not training or in meetings with them every day. They have a far more individual programme, so it can be psychologically tough because rugby is a team sport. So that’s part of our management: ensuring there are periods where they’re in the gym with others, or doing skills with their teammates, so they don’t feel on the periphery.

“I don’t think many people understand how much work and time these players put into their profession. They don’t just train three or four hours a day, there’s all the work around that: game plans, meetings, analysis, eating well, recovering well. In terms of dedication and preparation, it’s a totally different game to when I was playing. I was lucky in that I got to see the slightly amateur side where we could spend a lot of time socialising, building relationships with your teammates.”

Morgan has forty-eight Wales caps and several accolades to his name from a career that spanned 14 years, but you get the sense he’s the last person to want to offer advice outside his remit to any of the Bears players. “They have so much information from coaches these days that I wouldn’t want to overload them with any more,” he says. “The way I played the game may be totally different to way somebody under my watch plays it, or the way the head coach or skills coach played it.

“I don’t get involved in that regard, but I do know the pressures of being a rugby player. I’m always there to lean on or discuss matters, like how they can manage themselves on a daily basis, physically and psychologically.”

So he doesn’t feel the need to remind the players he was the Celtic League’s top try-scorer in 04/05, then? “I tell them every day,” he jokes. “I mention the Grand Slam a lot too, especially with Wales doing so well lately. Some of the English boys have had enough of it!”

For all its ground-breaking impact in Wales, not to mention Morgan’s key role in the campaign, the 2005 Grand Slam didn’t change his life. “Social media wasn’t a big thing back then, and sport wasn’t as magnified as it is today. In some ways, I’m glad it was like that. You could actually get away from it because it wasn’t in your face as much.

“After we beat Ireland, and all the celebrations that went with that, I was back playing for the Dragons the following week.”

If he achieved a dream in winning a Grand Slam for his country, it was only a distant one for the young boy who grew up in the village of Cilfynydd, a mile or so up the road from Pontypridd. “When you’re a young boy, watching the old Five Nations, all you want to do is to play for Wales. But you never think you will. I started out playing schoolboys, age grade, then I’m playing for the local team with some of my heroes, then all of a sudden I get called up to the Welsh squad. There was never any long-term plan. One thing just always led to another.”

He was part of a star-studded Ponty Schools team, featuring players like Martyn Williams and Lee Jarvis, who won the Dewar Shield. Despite his parents not being Welsh speakers, Morgan is proud that they opted to give him a Welsh-language education: first at Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Pontsionnorton, then at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen (now Garth Olwg).

“Even though we lived about 15 metres from the English-speaking school in Cilfynydd, they wanted to send me to Ysgol Pont Siôn Norton, which was a couple of miles away. I never asked why, but I’m so happy and grateful they sent me there. Luckily enough, I’ve retained the language and speak it with quite a few of the Welsh guys in Bristol.”

Those with whom he speaks Cymraeg count among them flanker Dan Thomas, Academy Manager Gethin Watts and the Lloyd brothers, Ioan and Jac. “We always make a point of speaking Welsh to each other,” says Morgan. “It’s especially beneficial for me because a lot of these guys come from Welsh-speaking families, whereas I don’t. It means I get to retain the language, which is something that’s very important to me.”