Downside's rising star

BY JAM' I' t tt, THOUGH ONE OF the most effective goal kickers in the land, Jonathan Callard would prefer to he remembered as a rugby player whose first instinct was to run with the ball. The Downside coach gets the chance to show that side of his game this Saturday when he plays full back against the touring South Africans.
The Springboks are currently world champions, but on home turf England are in with a good chance and expect to run them very close.
Speaking at Downside
School in Somerset, where he teaches Maths and Biology as well as PE, he said "Kicking has brought me an enormous amount of success, but I made my name at Bath by running. It was only when I started playing for England that I started kicking." He confessed that "Even when I am away playing for England, I still feel as if I am working for the school".
Certainly his choice of role models JPR Williams and Serge Blanco, legendary Number 15s of the 1970s and 1980s indicate a taste for an open game. The fact that those qualities haven't come out says more about England than it does about Callard. But the reorganisation of the team, particularly the selection of Bath team mates Mike Catt at fly half and Andy Robinson at open side flanker, should ensure England opt for a more expansive game plan this time.
Though born in Leicester to English parents, Callard was brought up in South Wales and played all his representative rugby in Wales at one stage he was even in the national squad. The change of national team came in with a change of club.
"I always said that if I left
Newport I'd go to a top club in the land, and at that time it was Bath." Indeed it was. Bath have been top English, and probably top British and even European, club for over a decade now.
That change brought him to Downside, where he has been for six years. Sadly, though, he leaves the Catholic boarding school in January to do an MA in Education Management at Bath University. "Downside has been fantastic, and I couldn't have wished for a better start in teaching. After the course I'll maybe go back into education or sports management, but I don't know what the future holds at this stage".
What Callard is sure of is that Bath have to come up with some player contracts in the near future if the club wants to hang on to its allstar-cast.
With the introduction of the professional game, poaching is becoming rife, as clubs attempt to lure top players as a bait. Callard was one of those approached, but says that the £25,000 a year offer would not tempt him away.
The management need to do something quick: the "loyalty factor" won't last forever. "They've got to sort something out or players will start thinking about the mortgage. It's taken 20 years to build this club up, but it could take 20 minutes for it to disintegrate," he warns ominously.
Bath, watch out. Your days at the top may be numbered.