I go to the school gym at lunchtime to do weights. Sad Lad, a couple of girls call me when they see me coming out dripping with sweat. I don’t care. I’m not too cool to make it look like it’s all beneath me. Gym, weights, speed stuff, I’m mad for it all. I drop honey sandwiches for tins of tuna, crisps for pieces of fruit.

Whoever works hardest will win.

December. We get 21 days’ holiday over Christmas, and I train at the school on 20 of those days. The 21st is Christmas Day, and the only reason I don’t train then is that the place is locked and I can’t get in.

Whoever works hardest will win.

2004. I start to train my mind as well as my body.

Whenever we play a match, I have to be better than my opposite number. You hear whispers on the circuit: oh, Pembrokeshire have got a good number 7, or Llanelli, or Pontypridd. And I’m thinking, Well, he can’t be as good as me. He can’t be as good an athlete as me, or train as hard as me, or want it as much as I do. So no matter how good he thinks he is, I’m better.

Whoever I play for, there’s only one number 7 shirt. I’m the best 7 at Whitchurch, which is a huge school. I’m better than everyone I play against, every 7 in all 26 of Cardiff’s secondary schools, and all across Wales. I’m the best 7 in Wales.

And if that’s the case, and it is, then why shouldn’t I be better than every schoolboy 7 in England, Scotland and Ireland, because I train harder than they do too?

I take it further. I keep hearing about this team, this almost mythical band of brothers who comprise the four Home Nations and only come together once every four years. The Lions. The British and Irish Lions.

If I’m the best schoolboy 7 among the four Home Nations, and if I keep that going into senior level, and if I’m better than everyone in a 10-year age range too – if I continue to be better than every 7 I play against, no matter how old they are – then why shouldn’t I play for the Lions one day?

There’s a questionnaire for the rugby team. One of the questions is ‘What’s your ultimate ambition?’

‘British and Irish rugby legend,’ I write.

‘That’s a bit big-headed,’ says Dad when he sees it.

I shrug. ‘It’s true, though.’

Mr Morris nods when I tell him what I wrote. ‘Aim for the stars, lad,’ he says. ‘If you fail, you’ll still reach the sky.’

I win player of the year for Cardiff Schools Under-15s. I smile sweetly when I go up to accept the award and shake the hand of the guy presenting me with the award, but inside I’m seething.

Sure, I’ve won it this year, but the previous year I was on the bench all season and only played 17 minutes. I’d been a regular starter for the three years before that, and I was playing as well as anyone for Whitchurch, so why the difference?

Because the coach was getting free golf lessons off the number 7’s dad, that’s why.

To start with, I know her only as the badminton girl.

I hardly ever see her around. The school’s so huge – 12 classes in each year – that it’s split across two sites, and she’s usually on the other site from me. All I know is that she plays badminton at age group for Wales, and she looks really nice.

In year 10 we get to be in a maths class together. Friday afternoon, really bored, I’m sitting with my mates at the back, and we do what boys have done in mixed classes since pretty much the dawn of time: we start rating the girls out of ten. When it comes to Rachel Thomas, I go, ‘Oh, four,’ just so no one thinks I’m too keen. But inside I’m thinking, She looks really nice. Not just attractive, though of course she is – brown hair, big eyes, wide smile – but a really nice person too.

One of my mates adds her to my list on MSN Messenger, and we start chatting. Two years of messaging before we meet in person! Even though – and this is the really insane bit – all the time she lives four doors down from me, and neither of us ever know. We don’t even bump into each other on the street when going to and from school. She tells me all about her family, which is tight and close like mine: she has two sisters, her parents are always loving and loyal, they’ve got the same values I’ve been brought up with.

And just as I’ve never had a girlfriend, she’s never had a boyfriend. I ask her if we can meet up – anywhere you like, I say, even if it’s just for five minutes outside your house with a bag of sweets. She’s wary. She knows I play rugby, and she knows what kind of reputation the rugby boys have – girls and drinking and bad behaviour. I’m not like that, I say, but of course that’s just the kind of thing someone who was like that would say. No point in saying it. I have to show her. Once she gets to know me, she’ll see I’m really not like all the other rugby guys.

Christmas. The Lions are due to tour New Zealand next year. My folks give me a Lions jersey with 7 on the back: a real 7, with the Lions logo at the bottom. I wear this shirt everywhere, absolutely everywhere. I wear it to the gym, and out running, and in the school library when it’s a non-uniform day, and when sitting at home. Sometimes I even let Mum wash it.

2005. Rugby players have a bit of an image as thick louts, and I’m determined to be neither. I’m in the top third of my classes; not super-intelligent by any means, but better than average. Only two teachers reckon I won’t do well in my GCSEs. My biology teacher predicts a D, my RE teacher says E. No way, I tell them both. I’ll get an A. I might not be able to work everything out for myself from scratch, but I’m good at parrot learning, and if that’s what it takes then that’s what it takes. You can argue that the exam system is wrong and that it doesn’t take into account things that it should do, but it’s like wanting to play rugby at 7 – don’t bitch about it, just get on with it.

Prove the doubters wrong. It’s the easiest way of making me do something, to tell me that I won’t.

I get A’s in both RE and biology, just like I said I would. The RE teacher runs up to me and hugs me, thrilled that I’ve proved her wrong.

The biology teacher doesn’t say a word.

The prom, end of year 11. Rach is there. I’m more nervous than I’ve ever been before a rugby match. Do it, I say to myself. Talk to her. She’s right here. It’s now or never.

So I do. We sit on a bench and chat. It’s the happiest day of my life, honestly it is.

And that’s it. From that moment onwards, I’ve got no interest in any other girl. I know she’s the one for me. She’s the one I’m going to marry.

When you know, you know. And I know.

July. I immerse myself in the Lions tour to New Zealand, getting up at stupid o’clock to watch some of the games. Martyn Williams is my hero, and I’m so thrilled when he makes it onto the pitch as a replacement in the third Test, even though both the match and the series are long gone by then. I’m also transfixed by the way Marty Holah at 7 plays for the Maori All Blacks when they beat the Lions before the Test series begins.

The next time my beloved Lions shirt comes back from the wash, I fold it neatly and put it in the bottom of a drawer.

‘What’s up?’ Mum says. ‘Don’t you like wearing it anymore?’

‘Next time I wear that top,’ I reply, ‘it’s going to be the real thing.’

Rach and I start going out. I’m lovesick, quite literally; every time I see her, I’m so nervous that I throw up beforehand. I’ve only ever been sick before a match once, and even that was just reflex from a cough I had, but with Rachel it happens every time. ‘I’m not sure this is normal,’ Mum says. Maybe not, I think, but Kyle in South Park used to get sick like this too whenever he met a girl, so at least I’ve got company (even if that company is a cartoon character).

Sometimes it even happens when I’m with Rachel, in the car for example. ‘Rach, can you pull over? I just – there’s something I need to get behind that post-box.’ And then I’m out of the car and chucking my guts up behind the post-box, as if it’s two in the morning and I’ve had a skinful.

If I haven’t learned the lesson from last year’s case of free golf tuition, I do this time round. I’m playing two years up by now, and we go to face Glantaf. Last time we played them my opposite number started strangling me, and when I fought back he bit my finger. At the next kick-off, I told the fly-half to put it on him, and when he caught it I forearmed him in the face as hard as I could. He never came back at me for the rest of the game.

So there’s a bit of history here. I’m thinking about this and looking to see whether this bloke’s going to be playing again today, so when I see a Cardiff Blues car parked near the pitch I don’t take much notice. I assume they’re there to watch one of the Glantaf boys, a big, hard-running back called Jamie Roberts.

Turns out they know all about Jamie, and it’s me they’ve come to watch.

I do well at a Cardiff Blues academy training session and get taken on there. They pay me £50 a month, which for a teenage boy is the dog’s bollocks. No paper round, protein shakes whenever I want, travel expenses too. Happy days.

Not quite. The coach is really down on me, giving me three or four out of 10 when I know I’ve played much better than that. Not just one game or two, but every single time. Maybe he’s trying to motivate me, but if so there are better ways of going about it. I’m not a professional player, not yet. I’m a schoolboy who like all teenagers keeps a lot of insecurities tucked away behind the façade. Am I good enough? Am I tough enough? Am I wasting my time here?

Just as bad, he keeps putting me in the second row. I’m not a second row. I’m a 7. That’s where I play, that’s where I’m best.

One night, after another three out of 10 in the second row, I come home in tears. I go straight to the multigym and smash out as hard a session as I can manage, way harder than normal. I’m at it for an hour and a half, fuelled by rage and frustration, pumping weights until I can’t move my arms, screaming at the walls.

‘Sam!’ It’s Mum. She’s standing by the door. I don’t know how long she’s been there. ‘Sam, what’s going on?’

I tell her. She takes me inside the house and calms me down.

The next day, I realise something: the lesson that both this incident and the golf coach have taught me.

Not everyone has my best interests at heart, and not everyone’s going to play fair. The only way to deal with it is to make myself so good that they can’t do anything other than pick me, and pick me where I play best.

The only person who sets my boundaries is me.

I play for Wales Under-16s that year. Not at 7, ironically, but at 8, which is the next best thing. I don’t mind 8 – most of the skills are transferable. It’s still the back row, and I’m a back-row player.

On Friday nights, our mates start to go out into Cardiff, and they invite Ben and me along. We usually say no. Because we’ve always had each other, because we’ve never needed to bike over to someone’s house to find someone to play with, we’ve never really needed anyone else.

Besides, Fridays are when my granddad Keith comes round, and we sit there watching Friday night sport on TV. Wrestling, boxing, football, rugby league, whatever. Me and Ben and Dad and Keith, while Mum and our elder sister Holly roll their eyes at these cavemen on the sofa.

Dad introduces me to heavy metal. Specifically, he introduces me to Anthrax; and even more specifically, to their track Refuse to Be Denied.

Refuse to be denied.

Refuse to compromise.

I listen to it while running the streets at night. Seven – that number again – seven words in the chorus that sum up my entire philosophy.

Refuse to be denied.

Refuse to compromise.

I never stop trying to get better.

On Saturday mornings I watch Super Rugby on TV. I sit there with pen and paper, and whoever’s playing 7 – Richie McCaw, George Smith, Schalk Burger – I note down everything they do in the game. Tackles, rucks, carries, turnovers. In the afternoon I play for the Blues Under-16s, and when we’re given our own statistics for the match I compare them to those of the pros. So I might get something like eight tackles, 16 rucks, eight carries and no turnovers, while McCaw would be on 21 tackles, 40 rucks, 18 carries and five turnovers.

You’ve got a bit of a way to go here, old son, I think to myself.

But having a way to go doesn’t matter if I’m on the right path. I start jackalling – trying to steal the ball at the point of contact – in school matches, just like I’ve seen McCaw do. No one else my age is doing that. They don’t even know what jackalling is; they just tackle and ruck.

One of my teachers, Steve Williams, was a flanker for Neath, so he does one-on-one breakdown training with me too. It all helps me improve.

Ben and I play for Welsh Schools together. He’s a fabulous player, in many ways better than me, and that’s not false modesty on my part. He plays at outside centre, and his footwork and handling are absolutely brilliant. His hero is Brian O’Driscoll, and it shows.

One match, he suffers a shoulder injury, and a freakishly bad one too: serious nerve damage. The doctors tell him that continuing to play is really risky, and that the injury’s only going to get worse under contact. Besides, he wants to be a physio, and for that he needs strength in his upper body.

He’s 16 years old, and his rugby career is over. I couldn’t be more gutted if it had happened to me. Rugby is something we both live for, something we share. I feel his pain, his anguish and his frustration as though they were all mine.

From now on, I resolve, I’m going to play every game not just for me but for Ben too. I will carry his career, the one he didn’t have, in my heart and on the crest of my jersey. I will achieve the things he couldn’t, not because he wasn’t capable but because he wasn’t given the opportunity.

2006. After about a year, I manage to stop throwing up whenever I see Rach. It’s such a relief when this happens.

‘Sam,’ Rach says.

‘What?’

‘I think it’s time you met my parents.’

And the throwing up starts all over again.

Rach challenges me to a game of badminton. She’s playing for the Wales senior team by now, so I know she’s pretty good, but I reckon I can have her. I’m taller, quicker, more powerful, and I’ve got good hand–eye co-ordination. This might even be quite easy, I think.

It is easy. It’s 21–0.

To her.

She does me up like a kipper, hook, line and sinker. There’s not a single rally that lasts more than three shots. She’s always one step ahead of me, teeing me up one side and then putting the shuttlecock the other, or driving me deep to the back of the court before dropping it just over the net. I’m sweating and swearing and throwing my racket. There are a bunch of kids watching, and they’re all laughing: look at Sam Warburton, being beaten by a girl.

It’s the way you’re moving, Rach says. You’re turning like a boat, slow and cumbersome. Watch my feet. Look at the shuffle, quick steps side to side. You don’t need to keep twisting your body this way and that.

Right, I say. Race over 10 metres. I’ll definitely beat you.

Ten metres there, ten metres back, she replies.

No way, I say. She’s so much smaller than me that she’ll turn much quicker, and any advantage I have in straight-line speed will be cancelled out.

Finally she agrees just to the ten metres there, and I do beat her.

We play tennis on holiday. I beat her. We play again. She beats me.

That’s 2–2 in the Warburton–Thomas Cup. We agree to leave it there for the sake of our relationship. Otherwise in a few years’ time we’ll be going to the lawyers, and when they ask why we’re getting divorced we’ll both simultaneously say ‘sport’.

2007. Ben and I opt for the same A levels: chemistry, biology and PE. We revise together, and make it count; not the usual ‘Oh, I spent ten hours in the library’ stuff, conveniently forgetting that half that time was coffee and chat, but constructive and regimented, applying the principles of rugby training to revision. Half an hour on, ten minutes off, and repeat. Work out targets for sessions and stick to them.

A couple of months before the exams, I get a phone call. The bloke says he’s from the Welsh Rugby Union, and can he ask me a few questions. Sure, I say.

‘Where’s your dad from?’ he asks.

‘Originally? London. But his folks are from Lancashire.’

‘Like Warburton’s bread?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And your mum?’

‘Born in Somerset. Her folks are Welsh, but her great-grandfather had Scottish roots.’ My full name is Sam Kennedy-Warburton – the Kennedy is Mum’s side, and since she has a sister and their parents were both only children, she wants to keep the name alive – but I don’t use it too often when playing as it’s a bit of a mouthful and makes me sound way too posh.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’

Now he knows that I’m eligible to play for England and Scotland as well as Wales. Sure, I’ve played all my representative rugby for Wales at age-group level, but that doesn’t matter. You can play senior rugby for any country you’re eligible for, and the moment you have your first cap that’s it, you can’t play for anyone else (at least not without taking three years out to qualify for another country). Shit, better cap this kid quick: that’s what the bloke from the WRU’s thinking.

Sure enough, a week or so later I get asked to play for Wales in the World Sevens Series at Twickenham.

It’s a great honour, but I turn it down. First, I don’t want it to interfere with my exams, and second, I’m carrying a knock on my knee. But I assure the WRU that they don’t need to worry about me turning out with a red rose or a thistle on my chest. I’m Welsh through and through, and I’ll never play for anyone else.

LEADERSHIP 1: PERSONALITY

It might sound obvious, but one of the first rules of leadership is this: know who you are. There are as many different styles of leadership as there are personality types, and trying to adopt one that doesn’t suit you is not just pointless but counterproductive.

The WRU once asked us all to take personality tests based on the Myers–Briggs model. These tests assess personality in four main areas:

How you focus attention or get your energy (Extraversion/Introversion)

How you perceive or take in information (Sensing/Intuition)

How you prefer to make decisions (Thinking/Feeling)

How you orient yourself to the external world (Judgement/Perception)

You’re assigned to one category in each area, which means there are 16 possible personality types. I came out as ISFJ: introverted, sensing, feeling and judging.

Introverted people tend to be quiet, reserved, and generally prefer either being alone or with a few close friends rather than a wide circle of acquaintances. They find that large social situations sap energy from them rather than give energy to them. This is why I was the quiet kid on the bus to Bridgend, why I preferred Friday nights in with Ben, my dad and my granddad, and why I bunked off the end-of-year prom!

Sensing people tend to be more concrete than abstract in their thinking, focusing on facts and details rather than ideas and concepts. Hence my choice of A levels, all science-based one way or another rather than arts or humanities, and why I liked to collect data on players while watching Super 15 matches. I was always the kind of player who would do the groundwork first and never try to wing it.

Feeling people tend to value personal considerations above objective criteria. My parents brought me up with strong values, especially as regards treating other people. For example, I would defend kids against bullies even if it made me look bad in the eyes of my mates.

Judging people like to plan things, make decisions a long way ahead of time, and try to ensure that things are as predictable as possible by leaving little to chance. I always liked to prepare the best I could for any test, be it a rugby match or an exam.

ISFJs are often known as Protectors or Defenders, and I fit the broader characteristics of the personality type too. Here are a dozen ISFJ traits that apply to me.

I have a strong work ethic, which sometimes means that I take too much on.

I feel responsible towards others and like to help by sharing my knowledge, experience, time and energy with anyone who needs it.

I like to be conscientious and methodical, to do jobs to the best of my ability, and to see them through to the end.

I like working within established structures and organisations.

I’m deeply devoted to my family and value long-term friendships.

I can be reserved with people I don’t know well, which can sometimes be misread as standoffish.

I don’t like to draw attention to myself, and prefer to work behind the scenes rather than out front.

I don’t seek out positions of authority.

I work well on my own.

I’m receptive to new ideas.

I can take things personally even if they’re not meant that way, and find it hard to wall off my professional life from my personal one.

I don’t like confrontation (at least off the pitch!) and will try to avoid it wherever possible, always seeking to build consensus rather than laying down the law.

All of these traits fed into my leadership style, as you’ll see throughout this book. For example, I was never one for big, rousing speeches or putting myself in front of the camera; I went out of my way to try and get to know the newer boys in the squad; and I felt more comfortable as time went by and I knew the nucleus of the team better.

But what worked for me wouldn’t have worked for other people, because their personalities were different from mine. Leadership only works if your personality informs the way you carry out those leadership duties rather than vice versa. Know yourself, and you’ll know how best you can lead.

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