S2E3: Rory Underwood - 85 Caps, 18 Years in the Cockpit — What Comes Next?

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Forty-nine tries for England, 85 caps, 18 years in the cockpit of an RAF jet.
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Either of those achievements alone would be remarkable.
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But for over a decade, Rory Underwood lived both those lives that shouldn't have fit in the same week, let alone the same man.
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But this isn't just a story about being fast enough to outrun the opposition or disciplined enough to fly a tornado at low level.
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It's a story about what happens when both those identities, the athlete, the officer, come to an end.
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And what's left standing when they do.
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Another former Australian player, Nick Farr Jones, told me that you had a really lengthy audience with the Queen before a Rugby World Cup final.
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Is that correct?
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We didn't, no.
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You personally, he said that you had a really that had an extended meeting with the Queen at some stage.
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Is that right?
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Before the World Cup final?
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No.
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No, I didn't see the Queen.
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We only met the Queen was on the uh the pitch before the game.
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I think I think on the pitch twice.
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I think two games I've she's come to and they've been presented to us, and once to get my uh MBE from the Queen at the at the palace.
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Um it's the only time I've ever met the Queen.
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Well he's told me a bit of a furphy story.
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We won't include that then.
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Feel free, I'll say feel free to include it or not.
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Sometimes one of the things that surprises me about my whole career of playing rugby is that during the whole of my career it was an amateur game.
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So during that period I was playing at Twickenham, I've got my 85 caps for England.
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I was doing that as an amateur and I had a day job, and there's still people that didn't realise that I was a pilot in the Royal Air Force.
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So I flew Tornado's cambras and books during my time.
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I was in the Air Force for 18 years during the whole of my rugby career.
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I'm Steve Morris, and this is What Happens Next.
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If you're trying to place where Rory sits in the timeline of sport, think of it this way.
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When David Campese was the Wallabies winger terrorizing opponents from this side of the world, Rory was doing the same from the Northern Hemisphere.
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And if you speak to any of the Wallaby greats from that era, Campese, Eels, Far Jones, Poydovan, and the like, they'll tell you just how good he was.
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Rory was born on the 19th of June 1963 in Middlesbrough.
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But Middlesbrough isn't really where his story starts.
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His father, James, was a Yorkshire-born engineer who'd taken work out in Malaysia.
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And it was there that he met and married Rory's mum Annie, a Chinese-Malaysian woman.
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Their son's earliest years were spent not in the industrial northeast of England, but in the heat and colour of Southeast Asia.
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But even that homecoming wasn't simple.
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James was posted onward to Singapore and wouldn't rejoin the family for another three years.
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For a young Rory, it meant growing up between two worlds and often without one parent in the house.
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Well, like anything else, it all starts at school from the point of view of playing rugby.
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I didn't I didn't pick a rugby ball up until I was 11 or 12.
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My mother's Malaysian, uh, my dad and my mum lived in Malaysia.
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I went to boarding school in the UK.
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Didn't really know too much about rugby when I went there.
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Uh the main the prep the main school started at 11.
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And then we were started uh, you know, basic rugby skills in the first year to then move on.
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So that's that's how I was introduced to rugby.
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It was enrolled at Barnard Castle School in County Durham, a school that, by coincidence or by culture, produced more than its share of future England rugby players, including his contemporary and future teammate, Rob Andrew.
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It was here, on the school playing fields of the Northeast, that rugby first found him.
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Not as a calling, not yet, but as a game he happened to be extraordinarily good at.
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First came across Rory.
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It must have been the late 70s, early 80s when I joined the school looking after the sport.
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First impression is uh wow, he's quick, wow he's balanced, wow he can catch the ball, and wow nobody can catch him.
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I was a very quick kid, uh, had no idea about rugby.
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It took me a while to get my head around rugby.
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That was the sort of pastime.
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And I got to the age of 16, I actually got uh asked to go and play for Middlesbrough, which is a local cloud up in the northeast of England.
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And um so I started playing for them on the weekend.
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But by this stage, obviously it's an amateur game, so I need you know, post-school was was coming up, and I'd always had an interest in flying.
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Uh I didn't think I was going to be uh clever enough to go and get a degree and go and get yourself a um uh ATPR qualification to go and fly um commercial aircraft as what you needed in those days, or at least to get a bond from British Airways, because I I couldn't I couldn't go and pay for myself to go and learn how to fly.
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So the Air Force was the other option.
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And so I joined the CCF at school, really got into it, thought actually, you know, this is what I want to do, and I wanted to become a pilot, a fast jet pilot at the Royal Air Force.
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And so I went through the normal um selection processes you go through school, various you know, um selection processes, and got accepted the year after I left school.
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Now, by this stage, I'd already started playing for England Colts, I played for England 23s.
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I think I was on the bench for the England final trial in the old, good old days when you used to have a trial, the probables versus the possibles, at Twickenham.
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And you know, I joined the Air Force, and it was to explain to people now that it was an amateur game when I did have a job.
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And the only way I can explain to people now to get their head around it is you know, my job was as a pilot and not as as an officer in the Royal Air Force, and my hobby was playing rugby, and so I went training Tuesdays and Thursday nights and I played on a Saturday afternoon, and that's that's the way it happened.
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Now, obviously, as you start playing representative games, I was playing for the Air Force, the Combined Services, or um for England, you had to take a few a day off here or there, but it's still an amateur game, so it wasn't as if we had, you know, like nowadays England take six weeks off for the six nations, which is a rock block that is away from the club.
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During the you know, the peak of the five nations, we used to have one game for England, one game for the club, one game for England, one game for the club, one game for England.
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So we used to, you know, bat and ball between England and uh club games in those days, uh, during the Five Nations tournament.
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So it's very much that.
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It was it was very clear, you know.
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My my job was in the Air Force, and I played rugby, albeit, you know, I played a handful of games at Twickenham.
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Grandmore, Reese, Underwood, Underwood's in.
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Try number six, and the winner has done it again.
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My favourite try and one is the hardest question I get asked all the time to answer for a variety of reasons.
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Is it my favourite because it's my first one?
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Is it my favourite because it was a winning one?
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Is it because I beat 10 people and scored, you know, 80 yards or whatever?
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They all have different reasons for being my favourite try.
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Rory underwoods pass for England to recapture them the lead.
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Scoring a try that took us in the head in the triple crown against Ireland in 91 for us to lead to go and win the Grand Slam.
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The scissors with uh Sam Hutchinson and then went on the outside and scored.
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One of my favourite images I always have is either when I see a photograph of me going over the line or I see the video and you see the crowd in the background and you see the joy that's coming onto their face as they realize that I'm going to go and score.
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That is immense.
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He was quick enough to be noticed by serious rugby clubs, and he was disciplined and academically capable enough to be noticed by the Royal Air Force.
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Not one path, but both.
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He joined the RAF as a trainee pilot, training at RAF College Cranwell, while in the same year signing for Leicester Tigers.
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This was Rugby's amateur era.
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There was no professional contract waiting for him, no marketing deal, no central contract from the union.
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Rugby didn't pay the bills, the RAF did.
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Which meant every training session, every England call-up, every international tour had to be built around flight rosters, postings, and the demands of a military career that took itself just as seriously as the game did.
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Well, the old adage, I mean the old adage is these adages have been around for donkeys years, you know, that the forwards wins games, the backs by how much is an old adage which most of the time tends to fill out.
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I'm sure the forwards won't agree with that, but um that and of course the forwards think they do all the donkey work, literally, and we all do all the um the posing work on the outside.
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But you know, my my compadre at the time, uh who I've played many, many times against David Campese, um, you know, played on the wing as well.
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So uh for us we were seen as uh in those days very much as the finishers, uh tiling up the bits on the outside, but finishing off and scoring tries uh and trying to do it very well.
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He made his England debut in 1984, and over the next twelve years, playing on the wing, he would become the most prolific try scorer in the history of English rugby.
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A record that remarkably still stands.
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Forty-nine tries in 85 caps.
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There's a detail here worth sitting with.
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The record Rory broke had belonged to an RAF fighter pilot from the First World War.
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For over 70 years, the fastest finisher in English rugby history had wings on his uniform as well as his boots.
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Rory simply continued the tradition.
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When you run out onto the pitch with that white shirt on and the red rose, and you hear that crowd roar, especially when you're at Twickenham, it makes you feel 10 foot tall.
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Underwood, lovely pickup.
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First chance again.
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What a moment for the 20-year-old Rory Underwood.
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My first try against France is one of my favourite tries because it was my first try for England.
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My third try against Argentina to get my first hat trick, my fifth try against Fiji to get five tries in a game, which is something that's still a jump record.
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England's record try score is something I'm very proud of, but I recognise that it wasn't just because of me.
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I can only spoil those tries if the rest of the team do what they can do as individuals but as collectively as a team.
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49 tries is still the record for an Englishman, which is unbelievable.
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And six tests for the Lions as well, the British and Irish Lions.
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The interesting thing about the British and Irish Lions for us, the Lions toured here last year, as you know, which was great, and it's a massive event.
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The first person that I had on the series was Ben Alexander, who played 72 tests for the Wallabies as a prop.
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And the series that he wanted to talk about were the Lions series that he played.
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So for rugby players, I know what it means for Australians to play for the Wallabies against the British and Irish Lions.
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What does the Lions hold, selection for the Lions hold for an Englishman?
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You know, it is the height of um of an achievement.
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You know, it's I I've I've played on two tours with great pride, and it's and it's the highlight of my rugby uh rugby career.
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And what's interesting is, you know, for us here, we talk about every four years.
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Yeah.
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But I remember, I mean, I I toured Australia in 89 and I toured New Zealand in 93.
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What didn't really connect with you was that for us it's every four years, so it's it feels like a long time because we have the six nations or the five nations in those days every every year.
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But it wasn't until I went out to New Zealand in 2017, so I did the 2013 tour to Australia for Lions, and I did the 217.
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And I remember I flew into uh Auckland Thursday, I was obviously completely carry-backed, I was, you know, time zone and all that sort of stuff, and I you know the body was all over the place, and I remember going to a lunch, and Grant Fox was there, and I sat next to Grant who's you know fairly high up in um as was then, I'm not sure if he is now, but he probably is, high up in the uh the union.
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And we got chatting away, and it wasn't until I got speaking to him about the Lions, because obviously it was the Lions tour, and he mentioned the fact for him, he played against the Lions in well it would have been something like '93, so it'd been something like in the 80s, early when they tour Lions was 83, 83, he was on the bench for Auckland and he just got on to play, or something like that, or he was a youngster and played and he had to wait twelve years until he managed to play for the All Blacks against the Lions.
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Yeah.
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And it wasn't until he said that that I mean to and when you say it now, it's bleeding obvious, you know, for us every four years, but for for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, it's every it's every twelve uh is it twelve years or eight years?
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Twelve.
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It's every twelve years.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So, you know, I I I was very lucky I played two tours.
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There have been uh some guys that played three, a few played four, and very you know, in the old days when they were every three years, somebody played in five things.
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Gibson comes to mind.
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But, you know, for the Southern Hemisphere that play against us, it is for the mass vast majority of people a once-in-a-lifetime.
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Selection for the British and Irish Lions is the pinnacle most rugby players dream of, but never reach.
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Rory reached it twice, touring Australia in 1989 and New Zealand in 1993.
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Six Lions test caps, playing alongside the very best players these islands had to offer against the very best in the world.
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But a Lions tour doesn't pause for a military career.
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While his teammates were solicitors, teachers, and salesmen who could negotiate time away from a desk, Rory was negotiating time away from a cockpit and from an institution that had its own chain of command, its own priorities, and no particular obligation to accommodate a rugby tour.
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As a somebody trying to perform at the highest levels, I sometimes reflect on the fact that because it wasn't singly all-encompassing, it was actually for me personally, and this is one of the things, you know, it works for me personally, it doesn't necessarily work for everybody.
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There are some people that, unless they are focused on it 100%, it doesn't work for them, and also from a personal perspective.
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But for me, having that fit where you know I would I would go and fly two sorties, three sorties a day, I'd be flying one hour, I'd be pulling G, 6G, flying at low level, you know, doing simulated combat and all that sort of stuff.
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End of the day, I'm absolutely completely knackered.
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I jump in the car, I drive an hour, hour and 15 minutes from my old base up to uh Tigers, and I'd go train with them in the evening.
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But sometimes you know, you just get knackered and you just go, get off.
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You walk in the change.
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I used to I used to, the guys are very used to me walking into the change room with my flying suit.
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So I used to go in my flying suit, because I literally just jumped in the car, drove to uh just a training, walk into the change room with flying suit.
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They got used to it.
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So I get my flying suit, chuck my my and this is you know, flying suit, all the lights in there, casual wear, and then put my rugby kit on, and I'm just one of the lads, you know, and I go on the pitch, and it's out in the fresh air, running around, you know, uh just using that as a way of any frustrations for flying, or just let let the let the mind go and enjoy yourself and just you know enjoy that to then you know going down to Twickenham, playing a great game, winning a grand slam, whatever, coming home, and then finding you've got a three-year-old being sick at night, you know, at two o'clock in the morning, uh, and trying to come to terms with that.
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So I sometimes talk about how it actually, the three of those parts of my life helped to um, if not balance, but sort of bring perspective to to each other.
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You know, don't get me wrong, Christ.
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When I look back at it, I go, how the hell do you do it?
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Well, when you're in your twenties, late 20s, you just you do, you just get on with it.
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You know, any of us have had kids will know you look at other people, we've got kids, you go, Yeah, you know, I sympathise and empathise.
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You know, not all kids are perfect and you know, don't wake up at night and don't have the screaming ab dabs.
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But we've all been there.
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But then having the ability to offset that against each other, I think balanced it out.
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And so the point, as you as you sort of alluding to, is that for professional rugby players, I do think it's sometimes it's it's harder for them because they are trying to be so focused on the game, you know, the whole nutrition and fitness and all the stuff is just just leap leap years uh you know away from what we were doing.
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Some of us doing it, but most of us weren't.
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A lot of us are just doing the odd training here and there, but trying to sneak it in when you could.
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Whereas now it's fully focused on that.
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And the point you're alluding to about the fact that you get to end of career and you can't guarantee when your end of a career is.
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Not every player is fortunate enough to be able to say, I'll retire at 33, I'm gonna try at early 26, or I'm gonna go as long as 37, whatever.
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And so you have a real challenge of, okay, so what am I gonna do after that?
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Well, I'll go and do some coaching and whatever.
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Well, there's not that many clubs that can pay coaches, and there are you know quite a lot of players that come to the end of a career at the end of every year.
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So you're never gonna be able to, you know, guarantee getting a job.
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And also, if you've been really successful and you're getting a reasonable salary, you're gonna get your first coaching job.
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The likelihood is it's not gonna be anywhere near the same height as your playing uh salary is.
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Now, try telling a 21, 22, 23 year old to start thinking about pensions, start thinking about post-career life, what you can do after, that sort of stuff, when they are enjoying the fact that they are being paid.
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Over 18 years of service, Rory would log more than 3,000 flying hours on tornadoes, Canberras, hawks, and dominees.
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He wasn't a rugby player who happened to have a day job.
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He was, by his own account, a serving officer who happened to play rugby better than almost anyone else alive.
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He later spoke about the crossover, the debriefing culture of the RAF, the relentless preparation, the idea that you review every mission, every performance, and extract the lesson before you move to the next one.
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It's a habit of mind that doesn't stay confined to a cockpit or a training pitch.
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It becomes how you think.
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In 1992, he was awarded the MBE for services to rugby.
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That same year, he switched from the right wing to the left to make room for his younger brother Tony, who had broken into the England side.
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Together, they became the first brothers to play for England since 1938.
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Without a doubt, rugby has made me into the man I am now.
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Go to any rugby clip around the world, and you just say you play rugby, and they will welcome you welcome on.
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We are very proud of what rugby is all about, what it means all around the world, whoever you are, and as far as I'm concerned, anybody who wants to get involved in the game of rugby, please dive in and hunt because you will get more amped up.
00:20:54.559 --> 00:20:57.920
My wildest dreams were running around and with the roommates.
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:04.400
Did I ever think that I would play in three World Cups, be a leading try scorer, have 85 caps?
00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:06.400
No, not in my wildest dreams.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:08.640
When I started playing for England, it was a white shirt.
00:21:08.799 --> 00:21:10.799
Nothing else, but the number and the red road.
00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:12.000
So it's had its maturity.
00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:18.559
And being able to play for England 85 times has been an absolute honour and uh one I remember forever.
00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:30.000
No names, obviously, but over the years, you know, I I am so aware of some of the people that they sometimes get the end of their career and suddenly go, oh, what do we do now?
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:32.880
Every career in professional sport ends.
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:37.119
Most end not with a decision, but with an inevitability.
00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:45.519
A body that won't do what it used to, a younger player who the selectors see as the future, a season that quietly becomes the last one.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:54.799
They've had a nice salary from playing, they've got a nice house, they've got kids at private school, they've got a nice car, they got a certain lifestyle, and suddenly, bang, and they haven't thought about it.
00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:59.759
But then again, the other respection, there are one or two that actually put some thought into either going to get a degree.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:04.960
Go and start doing some secondments to um sponsorship people that they're doing with.
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:18.160
You know, sponsorship in our day was like, I've got to go and say hello to this to the player sponsor, I've got to do, you know, that sort of stuff, which you know, when you look back now, that's part and parcel of networking in the modern world, which you and I have been doing for the last god knows how many years.
00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:18.480
Yeah.
00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:23.920
But that's that's all the sort of stuff that in your early 20s, sometimes you don't want to hear that from other people because it's boring.
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:26.160
I'm enjoying myself, I'm being paid good money.
00:22:26.319 --> 00:22:28.559
Why should I worry about happening in 10, 15 years?
00:22:28.880 --> 00:22:34.720
Put it this way: you're a former sports person a lot longer than you are a sports person in your life.
00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:36.240
There's no doubt about that.
00:22:36.480 --> 00:23:00.960
There's research that um Morgan Stanley did um around the world on professional athletes and their earning capacity shows that um 10 years after they finish playing sport, no matter what the sport is, the evidence shows that former athletes are earning on average 10% less than the average earnings for the country that they're in.
00:23:01.119 --> 00:23:13.039
So if you look at the um whatever the earnings are in the UK and Australia and the US, etc., for the rest of their life they're they're on average earning 10% less than the average wage, and the average wage is not great.
00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:13.599
Yeah.
00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:17.119
The main reason for that is not preparing for what comes after sport.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:17.920
100%.
00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:34.880
You're in a situation where the two things that you were doing were probably considered by pretty much anyone, either one of them would be a dream for most people, being a a jet pilot or playing international rugby, one of the two.
00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:36.400
Oh yeah, definitely.
00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:38.000
How lucky are you?
00:23:38.160 --> 00:23:45.200
Um which one was the passion, and which one was you I think you said that the you considered the RAF the job, but was that a passion as well?
00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:46.480
Oh, hugely.
00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:48.720
Uh, you know, people ask me, do I miss the Air Force?
00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:50.240
And I I I do miss the Air Force.
00:23:50.319 --> 00:23:55.680
Like anybody, you've been in an institution for 18 years, you know, you remember all the good bits and all the really bad bits.
00:23:55.839 --> 00:24:08.319
But you know, you remember all the good bits, and the and the good bits, apart, you know, obviously some of the people you worked with, some of the crack you had on squadrons, it's a bit like being in a in a you know the team as you go through a the journey as any sports person, yeah.
00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:15.039
And being in a squadron and and and working and going on on detachments with um with your uh squadron mates.
00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:17.599
Yeah, I can remember some really good times.
00:24:18.079 --> 00:24:20.559
But the bit I've missed the most is is the flying.
00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:22.640
I do miss the flying, you know, 100%.
00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:45.680
When you talk to people about flying, people think about flying, and obviously 99% of it is you go into a big, huge metal cylinder tube, sat down with hundreds of other passengers, and you get taken from A to B, you know, and you can't see anything apart from a little small window at the side, uh, and you get talked at by a captain and you know, given some food by the hostess.
00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:52.559
My office space, so it's a two-man crew, or something, you know, in the Hawk, you could fly on your own, so I'd be solo half the time.
00:24:52.720 --> 00:25:01.279
Uh, my office space was sat on an ejection seat in a small little cockpit with a nice big huge, obviously, uh canopy over me.
00:25:01.440 --> 00:25:10.559
But I'd be flying around at 420 knots, which is roughly 450 miles an hour, so seven miles a minute, at 250 feet, about 80 metres off the ground.
00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:23.200
So extraordinary Wales and Scotland, and you know, that that's what I you know I could I always make the comments, you know, I played against uh Campo and and Nick and uh Johnny Eels and all that sort of uh guys on the on the Saturday at Twickenham.
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:25.920
And on the Monday I was back flying again.
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:30.559
So I imagine that there's excitement and there must be a little bit of fear in that as well.
00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:33.759
I mean, flying at 450 kilometres an hour.
00:25:34.160 --> 00:25:36.000
No, no, no, there's no fear.
00:25:36.079 --> 00:25:37.200
No, it's like anything else.
00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:42.720
You you could argue if if I said to you, right, you're gonna get your first cat for Australia, you're gonna play against the uh South Africans or the Kiwis.
00:25:42.880 --> 00:25:52.000
Now, the fact is, you've had no training, you're you're you're you know, you're not set up to go and play and perform at that level.
00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:55.519
Now, when I go and fly on a hawk at that speed, I didn't start out like that.
00:25:55.680 --> 00:26:06.640
I had four years of training through the flying training system to go through the you know the red and white training aircraft to go onto the hawk and then go onto the tornado and then move on through the career that I went on through.
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.480
You know, you are taught along the way.
00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:14.480
So you don't start at 420 knots, you start at 240 knots at 500 feet, and you learn how to fly that sort of stuff.
00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:19.920
So by the time I was flying the hawk, I've been in the Air Force, so that was at 92, so about nine years.
00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:23.279
So, you know, when I go flying, that's my job.
00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:27.200
And it and it and but don't get me wrong, that's that's that I'm not trying to be facetious.
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:35.759
For me, that becomes the norm, and that's the you know, playing for your country becomes the norm inverted commas as compared to the average Joe public.
00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:40.880
And so for me going flying, I'd come back and my neighbours and we've got friends of ours and saying, so what'd you do today?
00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:42.559
Oh, I went to Germany for the day for lunch.
00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:49.279
So I did an exercise, I went out and flew around in some of the German squadrons and I landed in um, you know, um Vildenrath.
00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:52.880
I had lunch and then dinner, another exercise, and then flew back and landed in the UK.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:55.119
So people sort of blow their minds.
00:26:55.200 --> 00:27:02.319
You went for a day and you did some work and you stopped for lunch, whereas most people go, when you go on a trip, it's normally to go for a holiday for two weeks or something, you know.
00:27:02.720 --> 00:27:06.480
Rory Underwood's rugby career came to a close in 1997.
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:17.519
After 14 years and 236 games for Leicester Tigers, a final season at Bedford Blues, and a place in the record books that no one has since taken from him.
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:25.119
Two years later, in 1999, after 18 years of service, he left the Royal Air Force as well.
00:27:26.400 --> 00:27:38.799
For most of his adult life, Rory Underwood had been defined by others, and to some extent by himself, as two things at once: a world-class winger, a serving RAF officer.
00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:42.640
By 1999, he was neither.
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:47.759
This is where our story changes direction.
00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:54.240
Because what happened to Rory Underwood after the caps stopped and the wings came off isn't a footnight to his career.
00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:58.000
For the purposes of this podcast, it's the point of it.
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:23.279
But for a lot of people, I know there's some players used to to, when they retired, three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, they would be their worst time of the week.
00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:23.680
Yep.
00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:25.440
Post-retiring.
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:34.400
Three o'clock, they'd have the jitters, they'd, or they'd miss the buzz, they'd miss that whole sort of you know, uh DP smell, go in the change rooms, the crack.
00:28:34.559 --> 00:28:37.759
There are some people who used to really struggle.
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:40.079
Um, so that was the sort of element you've got.
00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:47.359
The military had the same thing from the point of view of you go and play, uh, you go and fly for you know 18 years.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:29:03.440
And if you go and join the military, you get married, you go on to married quarters, you live on married quarters, you live on the station, you you drive from the marriage quarters, or you walk or cycle, you know, marry patch to uh to your squadron, you fly, your world becomes totally, totally encompassed in the military.
00:29:03.599 --> 00:29:09.519
And then suddenly, when you've done your time, I did 18 years, so I left at 38, which is my I did my 18 years and got my pension.
00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:12.480
It it's not quite bang, you know.
00:29:12.559 --> 00:29:15.200
There are, you know, they try and do resettlement for you, whatever.
00:29:15.279 --> 00:29:20.319
But in the context of this smooth journey for 18 months, and then suddenly, bang, you are just out on the street.
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:32.480
And it struck home to me when I was on my first squadron, it was uh it was flying cameras on T-17s, and the vast the average age was about 50 or the 60s, and of course, as a young 22-year-old, it was like these old uh old codges.
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:41.839
But I can remember a navigator who was 55, who was leaving the Air Force, he'd lived on camp the whole of his life, and his wife had kids, and the kids had left.
00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:48.400
He had to leave, so he had to he didn't have air service accommodation, so he went to get a mortgage at 55 for the first time in his life.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:55.920
So technically, he's retiring, so he's trying to get a mortgage for a brand new house in the local area, which is in uh it's Cambridgeshire, so it's not the cheapest area.
00:29:56.079 --> 00:30:01.519
And I remember him talking about his fears about you know trying to get a mortgage and that sort of stuff when he leaves.
00:30:01.759 --> 00:30:05.039
Never mind the institutional challenge you've got of leaving.
00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:19.119
Now, for me, and I do talk about this because I I I I every now and then get asked to go and talk at uh certain uh events which are very much about the military and the civilian and how the two can help each other out, and especially about leaving military people.
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:42.319
There is a there is a you know uh an initiative to try and engage with ex-service people as they leave because they are a very good skill set for people in industry, and one of the points I try and make to them is that even if you've only done six months, even if you just done the training and you fail the training at the very end of it, you do not realise how much of a skill set the military has given you to go out to life because everybody else has never had anything.
00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:44.480
So that's the first thing to try and tell them.
00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:59.599
And the second thing is how do you make sure that um people in the uh civilian world understand how best to relate and accept these people into a civilian life to enable them to get the best out of them?
00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:07.839
Because say to look, if you go into a civilian life and try and act like a military commander or whatever, it ain't gonna work because they're not used to it.
00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:19.839
And so half the battle is trying to get people to understand how to transition into civilian life, and it's both from getting used to working in a civilian way, but also living in civilian life.
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:29.279
Whereas you've got a problem, you speak to your next door neighbor because they're a service person, or you go to the uh NAFI to get some food, or you go and speak to SHQ and say, My drain's not working, can you fix it, please?
00:31:29.519 --> 00:31:37.200
You suddenly go into um uh a civilian home, and suddenly you've got to work out to do it, you've got to go and get you know all the other things that you have to do with life.
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:50.240
Now, for me, I wouldn't say I was lucky, but because I had a big, huge uh part outside of the military, which was playing rugby, which you know I was playing for the Air Force and the Cobb My Service as well, but fundamentally I was playing rugby.
00:31:50.559 --> 00:31:52.559
I joined the Air Force in '83.
00:31:52.960 --> 00:31:54.960
I met my uh wife in '86.
00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:57.839
We got married in 87, so we started living together in 87.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:12.480
And because she was at Cottysmore and I was at Witten, we were two separate uh camps, uh, we decided we got a house very close to her um base because she was an air traffic controller, and then I did all the driving because I was driving with work and I was driving with training as well.
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:21.519
Really, the only complete sort of indoctrination immersion of the RF in the military was for my first four years, three, four years of life.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:25.359
And it was in the officer's mess and whatever before we got married and we lived together.
00:32:25.519 --> 00:32:33.920
So from 87 until 2001, when I left, I'd lived in our own house and I commuted to work.
00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:38.880
Which is which is different from those that live on camp and do everything on camp.
00:32:39.119 --> 00:32:59.519
I'm not saying one's better or one's worse, but the day that I finished um in the Air Force and um, you know, hung up my uh flying suit on the say pervert, you know, on the Friday, Monday morning, I was dressed in my uh shorts and t-shirt, sat at my desk trying to understand what email was, uh trying to start trying to start a business.
00:32:59.599 --> 00:32:59.759
Yeah.
00:32:59.920 --> 00:33:00.559
And going with that.
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:07.359
There's a particular kind of silence that follows a high performance career.
00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:10.720
It isn't unique to sport or to the military.
00:33:10.960 --> 00:33:30.240
It happens to surgeons after their hands become unsteady, it happens to executives after the redundancy letter, it happens to elite performers in every field the moment the structure that built their identity, the training schedule, the ranking system, the chain of command, the applause simply stops providing it.
00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:36.799
Psychologists who study athletes and military veterans call this identity foreclosure.
00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:43.920
When someone is invested so completely in a single role that they never developed a sense of self outside it.
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:49.359
For decades, sport and the military have been very good at producing high performance.
00:33:49.680 --> 00:33:55.599
They've historically been not nearly as good at preparing those same people for the moment performance ends.
00:33:56.079 --> 00:34:00.640
Rory's answer to that gap became, in its own way, a second career.
00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:08.880
He built a consultancy, Wingman Limited, taking the lessons of the cockpit and the pitch and turning them into something transferable.
00:34:09.119 --> 00:34:14.000
Team performance, leadership under pressure, communication when the stakes are real.
00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:25.039
He became one of the people who introduced crew resource management thinking, originally developed to stop pilots making fatal errors under stress, into conversations far beyond aviation.
00:34:26.239 --> 00:34:46.320
Sweet low, sweet Jerry, carry me home, sweet low, sweet Jerry, come in for the carry me home, sweet low, sweet Jerry.
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:52.639
What's a succinct piece of advice that you give them on how they might manage the transition?
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:58.880
One of the biggest problems I find from people in the military is they don't think they've got any skill set that is relevant in the civilian world.
00:34:59.039 --> 00:35:15.360
And like anything else, um I can remember we did this um piece of work up at Waddington, and we got a lot of business leaders in there, we got lots of um uh military people in the room, and we talked about it's a bit like um that's in America, we speak the same language, but you know, you could argue with chalk and cheese.
00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:24.480
And there's an element of in the UK we speak the same language, but we use terminology and stuff in the military, and so does the civilian world.
00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:31.280
And there's a sort of perception that we don't understand each other, but actually, it's just the the meanings and and and phrases that are different.
00:35:31.519 --> 00:35:40.960
So the whole context of we're not that much different, but it's just understanding how to understand the difference terminology and words and various things, you know.
00:35:41.199 --> 00:35:46.719
Oh, the military got so many acronyms and three-line uh, you know, three three um three-word acronyms.
00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:51.199
Uh, yeah, well, you go to some businesses, they're just as bad, probably worse, you know.
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:53.360
And so it's just understanding that.
00:35:53.519 --> 00:36:02.000
So, what I try and tell people at leaving is first, as much as you can do, you've got to A, accept you have got a massive skill set.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:38.880
The skill set from the sporting side is fundamentally the soft skill sides, and it's around managing dealing with people, but not necessarily everybody does that, so not everybody has leadership skills in a rugby sense, and so when you transpose that into um a uh civilian uh way, it's really understanding how you take the mindset because the biggest challenge I you know I I get asked to do um keynote speeches and all of this stuff, and of course I stand up on stage and start talking about fast jet flying and rugby, which you could argue is what is two of the most testosterone-fueled sort of type activities you could think about.
00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:42.800
Slightly less than 50% of the uh audience might go, who cares about that?
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:44.719
I'm not interested in rugby and I don't want to fly.
00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:46.880
And it's all very male, male, male.
00:36:47.039 --> 00:36:55.840
So there is an element of one of the challenges you've got is how do you translate your sporting skill and prowess on being able to score tries into business.
00:36:56.079 --> 00:37:10.239
Now, what you will have is the ability of understanding how to try and be successful, how to overcome problems, how to overcome uh mishaps, mistakes, how to uh engender that sense of resilience uh and also be part of a team.
00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:28.960
But what you don't have is a core kit skill set that is straight away uh useful from a business point of view, which is why when you are thinking about leaving or when you are you know doing your your um your rugby or whatever sport it is, that you need to start thinking about creating some skill set.
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:30.000
Creating some, you know.
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:36.079
I I know some people who've in their spare time they'll do a degree or a master's or something like that, even even an MBA.
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:44.559
Uh I know somebody who went in uh the local KPMG and just said, Look, do you mind if I come and spend a few days and just follow you around and see what you get up to?
00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:45.599
It might be something I want to do.
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:49.519
No, this sort of stuff, just to go and find out what it is.
00:37:50.079 --> 00:38:02.880
I finished in 2001 and I spent 12 years as an England player, and I went to so many dinners, and as far as I was concerned, networking was what's in it for me now.
00:38:03.119 --> 00:38:08.960
It wasn't terrible, it was just like, oh, can I get a free car or can I get a free computer as it was coming out in those days, that sort of stuff.
00:38:09.119 --> 00:38:13.840
Because I had no, and that wasn't networking, that was just seeing somebody would give me a freebie.
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:18.719
I had no real fully idea and concept of what networking was about.
00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:19.519
Yeah.
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:37.440
And when I see the players who've who've sort of, after my time through the professional area and the success they've gone through and to where they are now, that networking is huge because they were seeing and speaking to a lot more people, understanding that more than I was not everybody, but you know, a lot more than I was at the time because I had a job.
00:38:37.599 --> 00:38:42.639
I didn't think about networking for the sake of later on because I was flying in the Air Force.
00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:56.880
So if you're able to make most out of the network, and I I would go back to my young 20-year-old self and see their snotty nose in just trying to see if I can wangle another free this, that, and the other out of somebody and say, you know, go and learn how to network.
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:00.880
Go and get your head around the whole point of networking, what's it about?
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:04.159
And it's not about the here and now, it's about the later.
00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:11.760
And go and find those people who are not CEOs now, because in 15 years' time they'll be retired, etc.
00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:24.960
Go and find those I've come and start, you know, senior managers and sort of you know, junior execs that have got the potential to go up higher and make friends with them, because then by the time you leave, they will be the CEOs and MDs of um of companies.
00:39:25.280 --> 00:39:25.599
Indeed.
00:39:25.679 --> 00:39:27.119
It's incredibly good advice.
00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:35.679
So you said you hung your flying suit up on the Friday, and then on the Monday you were going trying to go into business and learning how to do email, etc.
00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:41.360
Yeah, what was the toughest part or the hardest part of the shift from Rory the the jet pilot?
00:39:41.519 --> 00:39:46.880
Uh you'd already finished being Rory the rugby player, Rory the jet pilot, through to Rory the businessman.
00:39:47.840 --> 00:40:09.119
Uh the so there's there's a mindset shift from recognizing that people in business don't hold the same standards of punctuality and say they'll do something as those of us in the military uh hold.
00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:16.480
Um it was a real shock to the system that when people told you gonna get back to you next week and they didn't, that was fairly normal.
00:40:16.719 --> 00:40:19.519
Um so I had to get my head around that.
00:40:19.760 --> 00:40:26.639
Um secondly, I always remember it's about the year before we left, we got our first job.
00:40:26.719 --> 00:40:31.519
There's about three of us, we we had an opportunity to run a run a team uh program for this company.
00:40:31.599 --> 00:40:35.760
So we did a two and a half day and we said, right, he wants a proposal.
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:37.599
What's a proposal?
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:42.800
Well, uh what do we want to charge him?
00:40:43.199 --> 00:40:44.639
Well, how much do we want to charge him?
00:40:44.719 --> 00:40:45.039
I don't know.
00:40:45.199 --> 00:40:46.320
What do we charge?
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:49.599
Is it is it is it our time or is it the number of people?
00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:52.000
Is it do we charge for do we charge them for that?
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:53.119
Do we charge for this?
00:40:53.360 --> 00:40:54.880
Do we charge prep time?
00:40:55.039 --> 00:40:57.840
I mean, you know, it was a steep learning curve.
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:02.719
That first writing a proposal for three blokes in the military who've never done proposals.
00:41:03.360 --> 00:41:06.239
It'll be easier to tell this part of the story as a triumph.
00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:14.800
The record-breaking winger and decorated officer who simply pivoted into corporate speaking and consultancy, no harder than changing wings on the field.
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:24.239
But that framing does a disservice to how genuinely difficult this transition is for people who've spent their entire lives at the top of two demanding professions.
00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:33.039
What makes Rory's story instructive isn't that he avoided the struggle, it's that he named it and then built something out of it.
00:41:33.360 --> 00:41:43.519
The same debriefing instinct that made him a better pilot and a better winger, review the performance, extract the lesson, apply it forward, he turned on his own life.
00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:45.039
And make it pragmatic.
00:41:45.119 --> 00:41:47.039
Don't give solutions and over-engineer it.
00:41:47.119 --> 00:41:48.480
Just keep things simple.
00:41:48.719 --> 00:41:52.400
That whole point is, you know, uh, why complicate things?
00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:55.760
The identity you built was never the whole of you.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:04.079
It's a simple idea and an enormously difficult one to actually believe when the applause stops and the pension paperwork starts.
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:12.079
Have you ever been into an organization and seen a team and looked at it and thought this is a high performing team?
00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:18.000
For you, what are the traits of a team that is performing at or near its zenith?
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:24.559
When you say high performance, obviously you could argue that's not at the the extreme zenith of the of the spectrum.
00:42:24.800 --> 00:42:26.800
Have I ever seen a team at the very extreme?
00:42:26.960 --> 00:42:27.280
No.
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:28.880
I don't think I'll ever see one in my life.
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:29.840
This it's impossible.
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:33.599
When you take the standard mean curve, you know, that that top five percent.
00:42:33.920 --> 00:42:52.960
What I have seen is at certain times, and anybody will that there are certain times when as a senior leadership team or as a group or as a business department or whatever, there are certain times where you just you you don't realise at the time, but just you just get into a zone, and it's not till after you leave that or you move on or you get promoted and whatever that you go, you know what?
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:57.679
That two-year period, that three-year period was just top-notch.
00:42:57.760 --> 00:42:59.280
It was we just zinged.
00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:03.360
You know, we didn't have to check on people, we didn't have to ask, we didn't have to chase them.
00:43:03.519 --> 00:43:07.599
You know, when put somebody said, Oh yeah, and I've done that, you know, and everybody just gelled together.
00:43:07.679 --> 00:43:12.400
And you know, I've I come across that several times with people I've worked with, and they talk about it themselves.
00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:14.239
And it's a very rare area.
00:43:14.480 --> 00:43:25.519
Now, in the same way, quid pro quo, when I do the work that I do and I ask the opposite question, do you find them down the opposite end, which is what most companies ask me because they're frightened of being seen as being down there?
00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:32.320
Yeah, and like any SD curve, there's very rare that you get right down the bottom end of that 5, 10, 15%.
00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:36.400
Because to be honest with you, the vast majority of businesses obviously are in that middle.
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:38.320
That's the whole point of an SD curve.
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:42.159
And so the vast majority of businesses are in that middle bit.
00:43:42.639 --> 00:43:45.679
The real challenge is where in the middle bit are you?
00:43:45.840 --> 00:43:46.079
Yeah.
00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:50.719
And so, therefore, what do you need to do to try and move yourself up the curve?
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:59.440
There's an element of people can do it from a business perspective, from the harsh realities of business analytics, uh, all the sort of uh you know, process and systems, stuff like that.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:01.519
Not a master's degree in this.
00:44:01.599 --> 00:44:02.639
So I've done some research.
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:10.400
I do the sort of stuff that all of us do, whether it's on Google or nowadays ChatGPT, and we try and dive in and learn more and you read books and that sort of stuff.
00:44:10.639 --> 00:44:27.599
But the vast majority of situations when I go into businesses, and this is what I see when I go into businesses, is that a lot of them will have the idea to you know either do uh bring in you know Six Sigma or lean thinking or whatever, or the business processes or get BI to come and help them with the analysis of the stuff.
00:44:27.679 --> 00:44:36.159
But a lot of it is just reporting what is being done, and then at some later stage give you some interesting um you know analysis of what's what's happened.
00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:57.440
When you start talking about the the the people side, as you say, all the sort of cultural side of things, the vast majority of um examples are really I do psychometric profiling, I do you know several of the the the profiles I use, but it's a means to an end, and so from that perspective, it just tells you who you are and potentially who your team is from a soft skill side of things.
00:44:57.519 --> 00:44:57.840
Yeah.
00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:05.519
So the point that I try and make is that you know, if you take if you take this a very bog standard, simple, can I have a teamwork questionnaire off a chat GP or Google?
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:06.639
You'll find loads of them.
00:45:06.880 --> 00:45:15.360
But what they do is tell you what where they think you are when you answer the scores against a standard, you know, um datum of teamwork.
00:45:15.519 --> 00:45:19.119
It doesn't tell you about whether that applies in your business per se.
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:24.719
So for me, I think of the commercial and cultural bits a bit like a yin and yang symbol.
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:26.400
So they're very much together.
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:32.320
And for me, when I talk about getting the environment right, it's not just about what you've got to do, it's also about how you've got to do it.
00:45:32.639 --> 00:45:39.599
You get those two things to write and you get them working together, then you get the best bang for buck out of the uh environment and so therefore the company.
00:45:39.760 --> 00:45:46.239
It's like anything else, as businesses become successful and grow, the more people you have, the more complex an organization becomes.
00:45:46.480 --> 00:45:51.119
And that's why the leadership team has got to be on top of helping the business to grow.
00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:56.000
I will ask any CEO, what's your role in what's your role as a CEO in the business?
00:45:56.159 --> 00:46:04.400
And the vast majority of times I'll get people saying to shareholder uh return, deliver on the strategy, uh, create a thriving business.
00:46:04.559 --> 00:46:08.480
Well, I says, no, fundamentally your job is to do yourself out of a job.
00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:21.519
Create a team around you that runs the business for you, that enables you to actually be the right person at that right level to go and look at what's the next challenge, what's the next thing, where are we going to, what's our expanding to?
00:46:21.679 --> 00:46:27.760
You need to think forward and think more strategically like that, and have a team that does more of what you know they should be doing.
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:29.280
Not you being it.
00:46:29.360 --> 00:46:31.119
Yes, you're still in charge of it, and that's what stuff.
00:46:31.199 --> 00:46:32.559
But get a team around you.
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:38.480
If you spend your time with the team and doing a lot of the team stuff, you're not in the right space, and actually you're hampering those.
00:46:38.559 --> 00:46:44.000
And of course, all that happens is they then do the same thing for the next level down, for the next level down, for the next level down.
00:46:44.239 --> 00:46:52.880
And what I see us so many times is people in the organization are managing at least one, if not two levels down for where they should be.
00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:53.199
Yeah.
00:46:53.360 --> 00:46:55.360
That's an example, that's that's a good symptom I give you.
00:46:55.519 --> 00:47:01.360
The other symptom I give you, and another challenge I face, is I go into organization, and I said to you before, people don't understand what the strategy is.
00:47:01.440 --> 00:47:05.519
The leadership team will have a submission statement and a few targets.
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:06.960
You know, people we've got a strategy.
00:47:07.039 --> 00:47:10.320
I look at it, it's an operational strategy and it's financially based.
00:47:10.480 --> 00:47:12.000
It's not a business strategy.
00:47:12.159 --> 00:47:16.159
So it's just pretty simply on we get those seven numbers, our our investors will be happy.
00:47:16.239 --> 00:47:28.559
But it doesn't look at how the whole organization, the whole organizational strategy of how you grow not just your numbers, but your people, your ability, your service, your excellence, operations, customers, you know, all that sort of stuff.
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:32.480
The real challenge is how'd you get that all tied in together?
00:47:32.639 --> 00:47:39.199
And so when they go and talk in the room and say, right, our strategy is this, this, and this, the MD says we're gonna do this, this and this, and they'll go, yep, boss, okay.
00:47:39.360 --> 00:47:42.480
The only bit they listened to was the bit that was relevant to them.
00:47:42.639 --> 00:47:42.960
Yeah.
00:47:43.199 --> 00:47:51.760
So you've got your eight department heads, they'll go, right, I'm in charge of sales, operations, customer service, HR, finance, IT, whatever it is.
00:47:51.920 --> 00:47:55.280
As soon as they walk out the door, they go, right, I've got to deliver that.
00:47:55.360 --> 00:47:58.719
So they go and talk to their team and say, right, this is what we've got to deliver, go and deliver this.
00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:02.000
That team will go, right, I've got to deliver this bit of it, this bit of it, this bit of it.
00:48:02.079 --> 00:48:03.280
They go off and do the other things.
00:48:03.440 --> 00:48:08.880
You have already systematic systemically created a solid organization as soon as they've walked out the door.
00:48:09.039 --> 00:48:09.920
So guess what?
00:48:10.079 --> 00:48:19.760
You end up with these silos going straight down an organization, and so you end up with cross-functional relationships pour across it, and the biggest symptom of that is competing priorities.
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:36.480
Today, Rory Underwood works as a speaker, facilitator, and performance coach, drawing not on the tries or the flying hours themselves, but on what they taught him about people under pressure.
00:48:36.719 --> 00:48:42.159
He still lives in Lincolnshire, close to Cranwell, where the second half of his working life began.
00:48:44.719 --> 00:48:48.880
It's worth returning briefly to that number, 49 tries.
00:48:49.440 --> 00:48:56.480
It's the statistic Rory Underwood is best known for, the one that opens almost every article written about him.
00:48:57.679 --> 00:49:01.039
But it isn't the number that defines the story we've told here.
00:49:01.360 --> 00:49:03.360
That number is 18.
00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:13.920
The years he spent in the RAF learning over and over that performance is a discipline you practice, not an identity you're issued once and keep forever.
00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:31.280
Let's say a young rugby player came to you today and said, I want to be in the w the best in the world, but I don't want to lose myself along the way.
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:33.199
What were you telling?
00:49:34.159 --> 00:49:35.679
Uh well, there's two aspects to that.
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:43.760
The first part of the question is I sit here now and look back and think, I know I could have practiced a lot more.
00:49:44.320 --> 00:49:50.000
So from the being the best in the world, one side of it is the what you gotta do, that skill set and whatever.
00:49:50.159 --> 00:49:55.039
You know, I never was able to spin past with my left hand, I could kick, but I wasn't the world's greatest kicker.
00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:01.280
An emergency I could kick my left foot, but it was lucky if it went, it was a 50p um boot.
00:50:01.599 --> 00:50:03.280
So you could practice a lot more.
00:50:03.360 --> 00:50:10.559
Now, the circumstances I was flying and that's what I started enough enough time, but the old adage, practice makes perfect, is is so true.
00:50:10.800 --> 00:50:21.199
The second part of your question though is make sure you've got and I don't know what like to use the word support group, but make sure you've got people around you you know you can go and speak to.
00:50:21.679 --> 00:50:34.239
Not necessarily about life, not necessarily about whatever, but just you know, and you've got for me, I was lucky, I'd yeah, fantastic wife, some good friends, and I had a great team that I went back to, and I'd good people in the squadron.
00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:45.920
So the ability to immerse yourself in different things to not become so single-minded and engrossed, because I think there is an importance to be that, but it's so easy to go too much.
00:50:46.000 --> 00:51:11.599
I mean, you know, Johnny Wilkinson has very openly talked about his success has come because he has got elements of OCD, but at times he recognises that at its times was actually encumbering him, and so trying to be able to get that right balance is a very difficult thing for us to do, and it's only when you have people that you you rely on trust, and when they say things you heed what they say, then you've got the right balance.
00:51:11.760 --> 00:51:16.079
And you're not gonna get any other things, you're not gonna get it right all of the time.
00:51:16.880 --> 00:51:22.719
And so the last thing I'll finish is that the only mistake you'll ever make is one you never learn from.
00:51:27.920 --> 00:51:34.239
Rory Underwood spent a career being extraordinarily good at two things most people never attempt even one of.
00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:36.000
What happened next?
00:51:36.239 --> 00:51:43.280
The uncertainty, the rebuilding, the second act is in its own way just as extraordinary.
00:51:43.519 --> 00:51:49.360
It's also, quietly, one of the most common stories in professional sport and military life.
00:51:49.679 --> 00:51:52.159
Most of it just never gets told.
00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:54.639
That's a great way to finish, Rory.
00:51:54.880 --> 00:51:57.199
It's been fantastic talking to you.
00:51:57.360 --> 00:52:03.440
Thank you so much for um allowing me to do so and being, as I said, so generous with your time and your thoughts.
00:52:03.599 --> 00:52:13.119
They're great thoughts, and um I uh wish you all the best with Wingman and uh everything else that you're doing as well.
00:52:13.199 --> 00:52:18.559
And I hope that you have uh you enjoy watching uh rugby, except when you're playing the wallabies.
00:52:18.719 --> 00:52:21.519
So um, thank you, Steve.
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:22.559
It's been it's been enjoyable.
00:52:22.639 --> 00:52:27.760
It's sometimes uh you know it's it's it's interesting to have these sort of discussions and chats, and it goes in many different different directions.
00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:30.559
But uh, yeah, no, hope I hope you found some useful stuff in there.
00:52:30.719 --> 00:52:32.559
Good luck to someone edit it down.
00:52:32.880 --> 00:52:36.880
And uh we'll see how we go in the World Cup next year.
00:52:37.199 --> 00:52:40.719
I'm Steve Morris, and this has been What Happens Next.
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:51.360
Next episode, I travel to Santa Barbara, California, and interview a man who played a leading role in changing surfing forever former world champion Sean Thompson.