My First Cap: James Hook

The plan hadn’t always been for Hook to join the Welsh All Blacks. Although born in the old Neath General Hospital, his first two decades were spent in Port Talbot. The aim, ideally, was to join Neath’s local rivals, Aberavon.

“I was an Aberavon ballboy for nine years and always wanted to play for them,” says Hook, whose grandparents are still season ticket holders at the club. He got his chance as an 18-year-old in a pre-season friendly against Maesteg. “I was still playing for British Steel, but I played this one match hoping to get a contract with Aberavon.”

Despite scoring nine points and starring in a win for the Wizards, no offers were forthcoming at the Talbot Athletic Ground. A subsequent string of good games under his belt for Neath meant there was no way the Gnoll outfit was letting him go.

Less than a month out from Wales’ 2006 tour of Argentina, Hook looked to the manor born as he engineered an improbable comeback at the then Millennium Stadium in the Konica Minolta Cup Final against Pontypridd, scoring a try plus 10 points from the boot. It ended with a single-point loss for Neath, but four days later, when new head coach Gareth Jenkins announced his Wales squad to tour Argentina, Hook’s name was there on the list.

“I had an Ospreys development contract and was training with their academy at that point,” says Hook. “So when [Wales team manager] Alan Phillips rang me up saying I’d been selected for the Argentina tour, I thought it was a bit of a joke. I hadn’t started a game for the Ospreys and wasn’t cemented in the squad or anything like that.

“My family was over the moon, of course. They had every faith in my ability, but none of us expected everything to happen as quickly as it did.”

Any feeling of imposter syndrome was quashed the moment he was taken aside by assistant coach Nigel Davies at the first Wales team meeting. “He said ‘I’ve watched you play the last couple of years for Neath and I think you’re ready. You’re going on tour to play’,” recalls Hook. “I had turned up at the Vale a nervous wreck. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the Ospreys boys let alone the rest of the squad, so hearing that from Nigel instantly put me at ease.”

Davies was true to his word: Hook was named on the bench for the first test in Puerto Madryn, a Patagonian city with strong Welsh ties. “Before the game we visited Trelew, which was founded by Welsh settlers in the 1800s. It was quite embarrassing because here we were in an Argentinean city where all these people speak Welsh, and you’re from Wales and you can’t even speak the language!”

Hook was hoping to find his fluency on the pitch should the opportunity arise. His memories of the day reflect the wide-eyed youngster he was back then, his boyhood dreams made real. “It’s the little things I remember like taking the brand-new shorts and socks out of the packet in the changing room; running out and practising my kicking before the game with a massive grin on my face.”

The laissez-faire approach was encouraged by the men in charge. “Gareth Jenkins is a real old-school coach. What I loved about him, and Nigel for that matter, was how positive they were. They weren’t always straight out of the coaching manual, but they were great to work with. For me, as a youngster, going onto that pitch knowing that the coaches had faith in me filled me with confidence.”

The atmosphere in the Raul Conti stadium was charged that day. “The ground could only hold about 15,000, but they had these high-rise fences around the pitch and their fans were banging on them and making a lot of noise. There wasn’t a lot of health and safety around then.”

Frontline internationals likes of Stephen Jones, Gareth Thomas and Gavin Henson had been rested for the tour, meaning fewer degrees of separation between Hook and his coveted first cap. It was an injury just after half-time to the late Matthew J Watkins at inside centre that presented him with the honour.

“I remember how welcome MJ made me feel on that tour,” Hook reveals. “Everyone knows what a great guy he was. It was little things like, ‘Hooky lad, come and sit next to me’ on the bus because he knew I didn’t really know anyone. It was no big thing for him, but it meant the world to me.”

Another experienced player who took Hook under his wing was roommate Mark Jones – affectionately nicknamed ‘Boycie’. “He was a bit of a father figure for me on that tour, the dream roommate. The youngest player in the squad is usually on laundry duty. Well, back then I was living at home and being well looked after by my mother: I could hardly do my own laundry, let alone do it for the whole Welsh squad! That was probably the most pressure I felt on tour, so Boycie helped me with that.”

Does that mean he felt no pressure on game day? “There was none of that,” he responds. “I was about to play for Wales, something I’d always dreamed of. As your career goes on you get a reputation and with that comes pressure. But back then I was 21, without a care in the world.” Those who have witnessed Hook’s try in that match might offer a different assessment of his personality that day, given the sheer bloody-mindedness he showed in getting himself over the Pumas’ line.

He calls to mind how the try came about, with Wales fighting to get back into the game after two sin-bins earlier on to Alix Popham and Gavin Thomas: “I remember Jamie Robinson making a break from inside our 22, and when I got the ball from him I had Lee Byrne on my outside. I was going to make a pass to Lee but one of their players was trying to block him. I was attempting to pass but running at same time before I realised try-line was only about 10 metres away, so I fended the defender and went for it.”

For the man on the receiving end of that fend, Francisco Leonelli, it must have felt like the longest six seconds of his life as Hook displayed impressive strength to hold him off and touch down. “When you get that close to the line in your first game for Wales, you take your chance,” reasons Hook.

Despite the late rally, and first-half tries from Ian Evans and roommate Jones – along with 10 points from the boot of fly-half Nick Robinson – the Pumas won out by 27 points to 25. A team comprised of players such as Agustin Pichot, Juan Martin Hernandez and Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe signalled the beginning of something of a golden generation for Argentinean rugby.

“It didn’t surprise me at all that they did so well at the World Cup the following year,” says Hook. “They had so much raw talent. That tour was the first time I got to meet Felipe Contepomi. He gave me his jersey in the second test and told me I should keep mine because it was my first tour. We developed a bit of a friendship over the years with him at Leinster and me at Ospreys.”

A photograph of Hook on the full-time whistle shows him cutting an almost dejected figure. That wasn’t the case, he insists. “After I scored we went on to lose by two points, but we had a chance to claim a rare victory in Argentina. We were really disappointed to get so close and not win, but there was a range of emotions for me, especially delight at winning my first cap.”

It’s a moment nobody will ever take away from him. He describes going back to the squad’s rundown hotel after the match to take stock of what had just happened. “I laid my jersey and cap on the bed. I couldn’t stop looking at them. I phoned my parents and grandparents with a real sense of achievement. After you’ve experienced that, you want more of it.”

Hook hung up his boots last year, and is now skills and kicking coach for his home region. His professional career would ended where it began, with the Ospreys. The tour to Argentina, the domestic trophies and the Grand Slams that were to come now inform the philosophies of an aspiring coach.

Playing four different positions at international level are huge plus for someone in his role, not to mention his famed kicking ability.  “Throughout my career I’ve taken onboard so much of what various coaches have taught me,” says Hook. “With Wales I worked with best kicking coach around in Neil Jenkins.”

Hook has also taken a less traditional post-rugby route, which he embarked on after realising he couldn’t find any children’s rugby books for the oldest of his three young boys, Harrison. “It got me thinking, so I started to come up with some ideas. I wanted to do something that represented my career in rugby as seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy called Jimmy.” Hook describes it as a tale of ups and downs, and one in which publisher Polaris saw enough promise to award Hook and sports author David Brayley a two-book contract.

‘Chasing a Rugby Dream: Book One’ has already been a big success, meaning Hook can now look forward to more than one new chapter in his career.