Ireland coach grew up in South Africa, played for England, and now has a key role in ‘amazing environment’ at Rugby World Cup
South Africa captain Siya Kolisi went to Grey High School in Port Elizabeth. Photograph: Siya Kolisi Steve Haag/Gallo Images
He explained: “I would probably have become a nature conservationist. I love animals, being in the outdoors. My mum is an honorary ranger in one of the local elephant parks in South Africa. I would have loved to have done that. A lot of my mates are farmers, so we spent a lot of time on the farms.“That was the other option for me. Sport was amateur at the time so I didn’t really know what would happen, so I went on a wing and a prayer and hoped it did. Thankfully it went pro in 1995/1996.
Catt didn’t back off the challenge. “It really gave me a drive to be competitive and to really prove myself. I was very lucky, a lot of injuries along the way that I snuck into teams and then took my opportunity on the back of it. My motto has always been, “be ready for the opportunity,” which he was from the onset, playing for the Eastern Province Sevens team as a 17-year-old.
Catt worked his way into the team, a brilliant running threat, a superb distributor with a better than decent kicking game. When Rowell took the England job, he invited Catt to play for the country of his mother’s birth. He enjoyed a superb career, notable for quality content, achievement and longevity.
“That’s exactly what we are asking the guys to do here really. This is what we want to do, this is why we want to do it, but you can be whoever you want to be within that environment or framework. “I coach exactly how I played, the picture you see is the picture you play. These are your options that you have got; with that you must be calm, and you must be confident, you need to trust yourself to be able to do that.
He answered without hesitation when asked about what, if anything, impressed him straight away about working with the Ireland squad. “The fitness, and no egos, is unbelievable. Having grown up in an English system you have always had these egos everywhere, you had to deal with them whereas in here there are none. It is so nice.
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