Leicester flanker Lewis Moody prepares to face the mighty Toulouse in the Heineken Cup. But, before all that, he’s got far more important things to do, like talk to www.rucked.com
Hello Lewis, where are you off to at the moment?
I’m heading off down to the M1 for one of Martin Corry’s testimonial dinners.
Testimonial eh? What else has he been doing for that?
We went up into the air with the Blades display team recently – a smaller version of the Red Arrows, but they were all ex-Red Arrows pilots who like to scare the hell out of people basically.
Surely you’re not scared of anything like that?
I’m not a big fan of spiders or eating cucumber! I’m also allergic to horses. One of my sponsors wants me to go on an Arachnophobia course, which could still be in the pipeline
New coach and a new galactico on board, Welford Road must have quite a buzz about the place…
Yeah, there is. It’s all change and it’ll be interesting to see how we go.
Does Aaron have to go through some form of Tigers initiation?
No, not really – only the first contact session. Most guys that join the club generally aren’t prepared for the amount of contact that goes on here.
With his arrival you’ve probably got more centres there now than a chocolate selection box…
It’s been back-rows over the years, so it’s nice that there is another position where there is a surplus of players. A lot of the guys can play in many different positions, so it’s good for Marcelo to have so many selection options.
You’ve been contesting the number seven jersey with Luke Abraham, surely one of the forerunners of this bearded craze sweeping the Premiership?
I think him and George Chuter were probably up there, a bit like Chabal, but all the beards here have gone now.
The World Cup was an intense affair, any light-hearted moments?
Dan Hipkiss kept us all amused with his John Wells impression. He used to ring up some of lads that weren’t playing like Will Skinner and James Haskell and do his impression, which was quite harsh, because he was telling them to get their bags packed for France. I think they cottoned on, though, after a couple of minutes because of all the laughing in the background.
Was it hard being away at the World Cup for so long?
Yeah, it was. Being away from your family, whatever job you do, is not that enjoyable for such long periods, especially as things weren’t going that well.
And when you got back what occupied most of your time?
Paying bills occupied more time than anything else. There was a heap of them on the door mat. That took a good week to get through.
I’ve heard you are quite keen on architecture, too, are the Welford Road redevelopment plans looking good?
There have been a few different variations, and I think one of them is going to be underway shortly, at the end of this season anyway. It looks very impressive.
Most aesthetically pleasing stadium?
The one I enjoyed playing at the most, probably because of the occasion, was the game against Argentina in 2002 at the Velez Sarsfield. It literally was the coliseum. There was barbed wire and a 10-foot moat around the pitch to separate supporters from the playing surface. It is an old decaying building but it had this partisan feeling about it, and we ended up winning the game, which made it even better.
Northampton in National One, does that provide a source of amusement at the Tigers?
We’ve had a good rivalry over the years and I think it was a genuine shame they went down, and it would be good to have them back up. I’m sure they will get promoted.
Leeds replaced Saints, of course, and you recently captained Leicester in the Premiership against them. That must have been a big honour?
Massive. It was one of those things that you don’t expect to do but there were a lot of guys rested that day, and the honour fell to me. It was a strange scenario especially as I’ve been at the club such a long time and it was the first time I’d been asked. It wasn’t really that different to a normal match; apart from I found myself saying a bit more.
Sam Vesty and Ollie Smith have a band called Slo Progress. Is it still going?
Yes, but slowly! They don’t do as many gigs as they used to do, but they have played in some bars around Leicester.