Danny Grewcock and the Six Nations

IT’S not every day you get a World Cup winner to put you through your paces – but that was just the case for Stothert and Pitt RFC last week when Danny Grewcock gave the SSE competition winners a day to remember.

Stothert and Pitt are one of Bath’s oldest rugby clubs – formed in 1903 – but by one of their pack’s own admission they lack a bit of bite in the forwards.

Two-time British and Irish Lion Grewcock could never have been accused of lacking the stomach for the uglier side of the game and Dave Peacock believes a day in his company will reap big rewards.

As the RFU’s new National Community Partner SSE is committed to powering the future of English community rugby and Peacock – who entered his club into the competition – insisted rubbing shoulders with Grewcock will ensure a bright outlook for Stothert and Pitt sooner rather than later.

“I entered because we haven’t got the biggest pack in the world so we get pushed around a lot over the field,” said Peacock. “Danny’s a great help to the club, hopefully he’ll bring our technical skills up another level. He can help me in decision making, turning over of the ball, rucking, defending and attacking hopefully.

Peacock’s glowing assessment of the day was also echoed by club skipper Ben Withey, saying: “Having someone like Danny come down, someone we grew up watching, is brilliant.”

And having come through the community rugby set-up himself as a youngster for Barker Butts RFC Grewcock himself was only too pleased to lend a hand.

“It’s great that one of the boys entered the competition and so SSE were able to send me down to one of the winning clubs and put them through their paces,” said Grewcock.

“I put on some of the training sessions the boys do at Bath to make the boys’ lives difficult down here.
“Junior clubs is where everyone starts playing, certainly for me Barker Butts was my junior club where I got my first rugby games - it was a fantastic environment to learn your rugby and enjoy yourself and I’m sure it’s the same down at Stothert and Pitt.

“We’ve got a huge population of rugby players and supporters and it’s these junior clubs that support the majority and it’s fantastic. The quality of rugby gets better and better every year and I think we’ll see more and more stars coming from these junior clubs and it’s exciting times for English rugby.”

As for the national team, Grewcock has warmed supporters not to press the panic button just yet despite the weekend’s Six Nations loss to Wales at Twickenham.
Stuart Lancaster’s newlook England had enjoyed a winning start to the championship, defeating Scotland and Italy on their travels respectively in the opening two rounds.

Despite going down to a morale-sapping late score against Wales at the weekend – Grewcock insists it’s not all doom and gloom for Lancaster’s men.

Lancaster’s England finish the tournament with a difficult away-day in Paris, before playing Ireland at Twickenham on the final weekend of the championship – and Grewcock believes there are more positives than negatives from their performances to-date.

“I think England and Stuart Lancaster has done a fantastically good job in the Six Nations and people shouldn’t get caught up on the loss to Wales,” said Grewcock.

"I thought the team put in their best performance of the tournament against Wales and it was just unfortunate that the referee didn’t see the try in the same way as we did. We really saw the boys hitting top form and playing really well together and unfortunately it was against a very good Wales team. The final decision right at the end didn’t quite go their way but that just shows how close they were to winning that game and going three for three, it was really close. So let’s not get too disheartened as the team has had a pretty good start and have shown a lot of ability which is important.”

Danny Grewcock is an ambassador for SSE Rugby, supporting community rugby clubs in England. Register now on www.sserugby.com to start benefiting from the support and resources on offer, and the chance to win £10,000 of free SSE energy credits for your club.