European champion enjoys fresh start at London Welsh (From Your Local Guardian)

European champion Tom French enjoys fresh start at London Welsh

11:48am Tuesday 24th January 2012 in London Welsh By Damian Dolan

While last weekend saw the quarter-final line up for this season’s Heineken Cup ironed out, one name forever synonymous with the tournament was enjoying a rare weekend off.

London Welsh prop Tom French, a Heineken winner with Wasps in 2007, provided the tournament with one of its most extraordinary rags-to-riches tales, as the then-unknown prop went from anonymity to centre stage at Twickenham.

Plucked from Wasps’ title winning A League team, French was thrust into the spotlight against treble-chasing Leicester Tigers, having originally been named on the bench only for then Wasps coach Ian McGeechan to pull a late switch. It proved a masterstroke.

“I think part of the reason they didn’t want to announce it was more for my sake than anything else,” said French.

“If you’re a nobody coming in it would be a big story in the lead up and all the distractions wouldn’t have helped game preparation.

“I was told on the Monday that I’d be starting but then ‘Geech’ said to me during the week ‘look, we’re not going to announce you as starting, we’re going to announce you on the bench, otherwise there’ll be a big hoo-ha leading up the final and we don’t really want a circus going on’. It was a stroke of genius by our coaches.”

French’s stature was seen as pivotal to a plan hatched to nullify the destructive Julian White at scrum time.

Plan implemented, tries from Eoin Reddan and Raphael Ibanez gave Wasps a 25-9 victory in front of 81,076, and the club its second Heineken Cup triumph.

“One of my main memories was right at the end just being completely exhausted - drained physically and emotionally - and then realising how big the crowd was,” he said.

“When you go out you’re very focused on the immediate events that are about to happen and you don’t really take in your surroundings until you have a moment and in that game I didn’t really have a moment until the final whistle had gone.”

All good things come to an end, however, and French would leave the club he joined straight from school last summer.

He’d already begun planning for life after rugby while at Wasps, working one day a week in the city during the latter months of his time at the club, and a move to join former London Welsh head coach Martin Jones as player/forwards coach at part-time National League One side Barking lent itself perfectly to his developing career off the pitch.

“If you’re constantly living, breathing and thinking about rugby the whole time it can get a bit too much. You can get stale. So having something completely different is quite good - it keeps you fresh,” he said.

His professional rugby days seemed behind him, but circumstances would dictate otherwise.

A front row injury crisis at Old Deer Park left London Welsh in need of a prop, and their search took them to French.

He accepted an invitation from head coach Lyn Jones to train with the squad in the week leading up to the Exiles’ home game against Bedford in the Championship.

While Welsh were edging a nail-biter against the Blues, French was making his last appearance for Barking in a 23-8 defeat at Sedgley Park.

Six days later he made his debut for the Exiles away to Nottingham – a club where he enjoyed two loan spells while at Wasps.

“At first I was a bit apprehensive, but when I came down and trained I really enjoyed it, having been at Wasps all of my career and not really experienced another full-time club,” said French.

“It was a breath of fresh air; I got on well with Lyn and I like how he coaches. He’s very informative, helpful and approachable. After the two days training I had a bit of a think about it and thought, yeah, I do want to carry on.”

However, he would be made to wait for his first win in a Welsh jersey – four games in all - before being part of the side which overturned a 20-7 deficit to become the first side to win at Clifton Road in the Championship this season, 21-20.

“I thought I’d brought the bad luck with me. It was good to get that first win, especially away to Rotherham,” said French.

“Lyn had spoken during the week about winning by one point, he said ‘this’ll be one of those games that’ll be won by one point’ and sure enough it was.”

Now settled in at Welsh, and still working two days a week in the city, French has no regrets about leaving Wasps last year and stepping down to the Championship via National League One.

“It was definitely time; it was difficult having been somewhere for so long, a change is always going to be a bit of an upheaval,” said the 28-year-old.

“I’m finding I’m enjoying my rugby more now than I was in the last two years at Wasps, but I had a lot of injuries.

“I’m glad that I had my ‘downtime’ at Barking but carried on playing, and then I’ve come back into the Championship almost refreshed.

“Not playing at that top level and being able to take stock and decide where I want to be and what I want to be doing.

“When you have a lot of injuries and not getting selected you ask yourself a lot of questions and you start to doubt yourself and the reasons why you play and whether you enjoy it or not.

“You’ve got to enjoy it and if you don’t you’ve got to ask yourself why you do it, and I was asking myself that a lot in the last year or so at Wasps.

“I wasn’t enjoying it and that was part of the reason why I perused other avenues, but since moving to Welsh I’ve had the enjoyment reignited. It’s a great bunch of players and I’ve really brought into the team ethos and the training, and it’s fun.”