England fly-half Fin Smith revealed he is indebted to Wales’s interim head coach Matt Sherratt for giving the “slap” he needed as an 18-year-old to ignite his career.
Smith came through the ranks at Worcester Warriors, where Sherratt was heading up the academy. The pair remain close and when Sherratt was handed the reins following Warren Gatland’s exit as Wales coach, Smith sent him a congratulatory text which drew short shrift. “I texted him saying all the best with the Wales stuff and he said ‘eff off, I’ll see you in a few weeks’,” Smith said. “That just sums him up, he’s a good guy, it was nice to know he’s not changed since he got the big job.”
Smith was already considered one of English rugby’s brightest prospects when he was coming through at Worcester. While he was not exactly coasting, Smith needed Sherratt to deliver a firm kick up the backside, which helped him break into the first team as a teenager at Sixways.
“He actually sat me down for a really honest conversation that I won’t forget when I was midway through my first year as an 18-year-old,” Smith said. “He was saying Jonny [Wilkinson], Faz [Owen Farrell], [George] Fordy were all playing week in, week out and if you want to get to that level, which he said at the time that he thought I could, then I really need to push on and not to follow the same trajectory that the boys in the academy, who were the same age as me, were on.
“He really looked out for me and gave me a shot in my first year. As a coach it’s probably not the easiest thing to do, but I’m really grateful to him and I’ve been speaking to him for a while since he’s left Worcester.
“It’s easy to turn up, follow the schedule like everyone else does, weights then meetings. He was just like, ‘if you want to take that step you’ve got to be doing things slightly differently to everyone else’, so he encouraged me to get in and kick on my days off, use my free time to look at video, be practising my skills, my passing. That was really good.
“It’s easy to go in as a young lad, and you see a lot of the boys do it at Northampton, turn up and follow the same path and I think if you really want to jump out ahead of the crowd you’ve got to be putting extra work in, so he gave me a bit of a slap, told me to crack on and do a bit more. I’m super grateful he did that.”
While Sherratt has not been able to halt Wales’s record losing run, which now stretches to 16 defeats, he has put more pride into their performances by rescuing a bonus point at Murrayfield on Saturday after pushing Ireland hard in Cardiff. Wales are also playing with far more attacking intent, which Smith can recognise from their Worcester days.
“It was no surprise to me whatsoever that he’s turned things around so quickly,” Smith said. “He’s an unbelievable people person and those boys are playing with a lot more confidence and I think that’s something that he has brought to them. He’s got an unbelievable attacking brain as well, you can see by the way they’re moving the ball and some of their strike plays, he’s stamped his name all over that stuff.
“He’s got them all on the same page which is the main thing. It looks like they know exactly what they’re doing, whether that’s in phase shape or off line-outs and things like that, he’s got them to fight for each other again. That’s the sign of a happy camp, boys running around for each other, scrambling, defending their goal-line, going to 80 even if the scoreline is against them. He’s clearly put some pride back into the shirt, so credit to him, but it’s going to make our job going down there all the more difficult.”
As Sherratt’s text illustrates, the cordial aspect of their relationship will be on hold for at least the next week, with England coming to the Principality Stadium seeking a bonus-point victory that would put them in title contention before France host Scotland. Assuming Smith retains the No 10 shirt, it would represent the biggest test of his international career as his first start in the most hostile of environments.
As fellow bright-eyed, blond-haired English starlets Mathew Tait and Tom Pearson can attest, a trip to Cardiff can set back your career prospects, but 22-year-old Smith is relishing entering the lions’ den.
“Murrayfield was the same, it was one of the stadiums I always wanted to play at and the Principality is exactly the same,” Smith said. “It’s going to be awesome. I can’t say it [the atmosphere] is not going to potentially have an effect on the way the game goes, but it’s definitely something I’ll handle way better than I would have 18 months, two years ago.
“It’s something I’ve really tried to look forward to, rather than let crowds put me into my shell, [I] really embrace them. I’m probably going to have a chance to look back after the game and think that was an unbelievable experience playing in front of a crowd like that, whether the roof is on or not, it’s going to be bouncy.”
