Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Haller's playbook.
In this endless year of sport, we've almost finished the November Internationals, which obviously in the UK has been a huge focus, but you can't have missed the opening day in the Ashes.
If you blinked, you missed a whole series of wickets falling on both sides. And day one has finished with, unbelievably, England all out 172 and Australia nine down, chasing 170. So the groundsman's probably going to have to be paying some of his wages out for the poor condition of the pitch, or else. It was just brilliant bowling, but what a start. And it gives me great pleasure, however, to look back a little bit at the rugby, but introduce to you former Scotland Rub international, Kenny Logan. Welcome, Kenny, welcome.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: How are you?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm pretty good, thank you.
It's getting a bit warm out here in South Africa, but I'm due back in the UK shortly, so I hear it's knee deep in snow, so that's fine.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: It's minus one today, so it's nice and fresh.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Okay, well, it's plus 28 over here, so.
Anyway, I. It's great to have you on the podcast and obviously, as good mates, I'm sure we can have a banter about one thing and another, but I guess I wanted to start just by asking you a little bit about the most recent November internationals, which are not totally complete yet, but we had a sort of, from a Scotland perspective, hugely competitive but not getting across the line.
How disappointed are you with that? Or is it just a function of the fact that it's hugely competitive at the top of the game now and it's kind of small margins, isn't it?
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very competitive. I suppose the All Blacks game, you know, was. I think it was 7, 17 nil down at one stage and managed to pull it back to 17. All we. We like that finish. I think if you. If you notice South Africans have brought the bomb squad on, you've now got the POMI squad coming on. You know, when England bring on Curry Pollock, Genj river, you know, they're bringing on five or six British lines and they're making a big impact in the game.
And I think you found that, Zach. The weekend with Argentina, you know, we're 21 points up. We. We got a little bit loose and we didn't react quick enough. We scored, we lost 14 points within like a minute, which is not good for a team that is played some big games and won big games, but we haven't Got this bomb squad. We haven't got this bench that come on. It can just lift the team or just take to another level. It either keeps it the same level or brings it down.
And that's a big concern because nowadays the bench is so they almost.
I think some. I think England. I think you could look at Henry Pollock, for example. He might get 70 out of 100 caps for his country, but he'll probably start a lot on the bench because his energy is incredible.
He comes off the bench and becomes the star of the show, right? And he really lifts the team. And New Zealand do it.
Argentina did it the weekend. They brought all the big boys on, lifted their game by 10, 15%.
And obviously the main people I've been brilliant at has been the South Africans. So Scotland need to get this bench so down.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: It's interesting, isn't it? The South Africa seem to be practicing whether they set the referee up to do it, whether they can actually play the game with 14 players only, which they seem to be able to. We'll see what happens this weekend. But it was the one thing. There should have been many others. But Sir Bill Beaumont, when he exited as chair of World Rugby, said his biggest regret was he did not change the rulings and replacements.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with that.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: The long list of things he should have done as well. But that's. That's his one public regret. It seems like that is now playing out in a major way to the point the game is completely different and first choice players aren't even started.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: But there's no, there's no tactics anymore.
So if you've got a bench of seven players or eight players or 15 players on the bench and you can only bring five on, there's a tactic to bring them on. Who you bringing on, who you taking off.
It's just bring them all on. 52 minutes, everybody on Benj get on. And I don't. There's no tactics in that. That's just a lump of players, seven players coming on and trying to change the game.
So I think that's a good call from Bowman, Bill, because I generally think when we played rugby, you couldn't. There was no. Well at the start, you couldn't get off the bench unless there was an injury.
And then they started doing tactical changes where you could see so that everybody wouldn't come on. Now everybody's on the bench. If you're on the bench and you haven't got a cap, you're definitely going to cap, you're definitely coming on. Five minutes Half an hour you're definitely going to get some game time. So I think there definitely needs to put back to that tactical.
You're going to take the 10 off, put somebody else on and then what happens is that the props, the back rowers have to learn to play a whole game because they might be on for the whole game. So. And then that'll give us more space.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: It's interesting the. I don't think world rugby will be brave enough to. Now the genie's out of the bottle. It'd be interesting to see whether they even think it's an issue or they think it's actually a subset of the excitement factor that they're trying to bring into the game.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: That is a good point.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And it'd be interesting to see whether they even think it's an issue.
I genuinely think it is and I think on the player welfare side there's another point there because you've got fresh players coming up against tired players potentially, which is one of the main reasons.
But the other thing about player welfare just coming onto another point in the November's was the controversy around some red cards, whether they should have been or not. If it's ruining the game, there's no doubt when we see the Japanese player whose red card was rescinded.
The resulting penalty for Wales got them into a favourable position for the next world. So actually there was a huge impact and Eddie Jones, I haven't got much sympathy on too many counts with Eddie but I did sympathize with that whole factor because it seemed like it was a massive game changing moment. Have we got it wrong here or. I mean I'm a massive fan of player welfare and punishing high tackles. I thought Deaga's tackle was cynical and high and deserved a ban. Are we getting it wrong? I mean, should there be more references to the bunker? That's what it's there for.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean I think you've also got to have a situation where if, if the bunker's there, they might have a bit more go for it because they know they can get the bunker. There's some decisions, you know, if you look at.
Was it Doris? No, it wasn't Doris, it was Bara. And who was it? Bar and Irish. Was it. Was it Doris Kean? Doris, yeah, the red card.
Remember the red card against in Chicago? Arnold against the All Blacks.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Ryan. I think it was.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Was it Ryan?
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah, so. I know, I know. Sorry. Tagburn.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Tagburn. So if you look. Let's do that again. If you look at the Tagburn Barrett situation. His. His emotions was this to push him away because one, Barrett wasn't expecting to get the ball and he did really well to catch the ball because he caught it here and he just sort of pushed him away.
His motion wasn't to go on. His motion was backwards. To get away from him as a natural thing would happen because he didn't expect to tackle him.
That was not a red card for the rest of the game.
That was an accidental situation. And if the referee see that or the video rev, he wasn't in a physical movement to go forward to smash the player. He was in a protective mode of that.
Right. And I just find little things like that we need to just be.
You know, have you played the game? Do you understand the game? You know, when it's cynical and you know it's not and we've got to have that little bit of just watch was in front of you and just try and think about that wasn't even bad. I didn't expect to get the pass.
Little things like that I think can ruin a game.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: I think what we need to do. And let's leave this as a. Because I want to talk briefly about the women's game, the recent World Cup. What I think we need to do, and Wayne Barnes was talking about it before he retired, is give the power back to the referee and put all the information into the referee, but give the referee the opportunity to say, look, this was a rugby incident or, you know, because you can't just be ruled on technicals or have what you've just described that was this an unavoidable situation driven by circumstances on the field. And yeah, there was head contact in the end, as there has been when you and I played, you know, plenty of head contact around. What you're trying to reduce is the regularity and the cynicism behind head contact.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: I think if you give it back to the referee Hallers. What happens in that situation is the referee is under so much pressure with the game, he's then having to spend three minutes, four minutes looking at the video. He wants to make the right decision. I think the decision is good that they take them off and somebody else makes that decision. But just think about it. You've got time to make the right decision and maybe they have. You know, I just don't think the more you put on the referee, then suddenly the game becomes slower and people are watching big screens. We don't want to be watching big screens. We want that flow of the game. And that has been Quite good where they've gone like that. Go, go to the sim bin. It's a red. It's going to get looked at. They make the decision. Just make the right decision, you know. And I think if you look at football, it's exact same V. There's always going to be a talking point. If we've not got a video referee, there's got a coach going, it was right for me, it was wrong for them. It's always going to be a talking point, you know, and it's harder because there's evidence in front of you and you get to freeze it and you get to do it.
Certain pace and all that sort of stuff. So I think we're always going to be discussing these problems.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, this one's going to run for a while and just building on something. Obviously, when you look back at the year of rugby, the incredible impact to the Women's World cup on the game and the attendance and the different demographic, you know, we all want families to come and watch the sport and that's happening. And, you know, the amount of girls taking out the game.
And obviously there's a huge mismatch at the moment at the top with standards, because of specialism, of the English team who rightly won the tournament. But there was never any real doubt there, in all honesty. They might have won it with their second team, to be honest. How do you, from a general standpoint and from a Scottish standpoint, how do you see that imbalance being put right? How do you put it right in the next.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: I think the first thing I would say is the tournament was a great success on the front of fans, enthusiasm a lot. The rugby was good. I think previous World Cup, a bit like when we first played the World Cup. Well, I didn't play that World Cup. You would have played in 97. 87. Was it 87? Yeah. Or is it 72 you played? I can't remember. Right, so 87, 91. So 91 and 87. But my point was, back in that time, he knew the top three or four teams were right and you were smashing teams. I think since the last Women's World cup, the rugby standards come up a lot better. A lot of the smaller nations have got better and there's a lot of great stories. In the Samoa, for example, that whole Samoa team played against England. That got smashed.
But the whole. The way they celebrated and the occasion of being there was incredible.
And their achievement of getting to the World cup and scoring three points, which is, you know, it was about that whole point. But then there's a lot of great pool matches, right? And then you got quarterfinals and semi finals. You know, England were always the favorites, right, because of how well they've been drilled. They've been winning six nations for the last five or six years of champions. You know, they're lacking. The last World Cup.
The pressure was on that team.
I saw Joe Mitchell last night and he said, you know, the girls did well, but the pressure they're under because everyone's gonna. They're gonna win. They're gonna win. So the tournament was really good because of the support and the enthusiasm from the fans, from the sponsors, and the way that the Gillows conducted themselves on and off the field was brilliant. And it was a breath of fresh air, right? I thought it was a great tournament.
And women's rugby, exact same as men's, right? We need to make sure that it grows in the right way. Not grows in a way where everybody spend loads and loads and loads of money. And then five years down the road going, we can't keep this up. We've got to lose some teams. We've got to do that. We've got to do it in the right way.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: No, I think that's right. At the moment, all the top players gravitate towards the pwr, the women's tournament in the uk.
We need somehow to find another outlook for the top players to be able to perform, because you need to bring the whole standard up. And I remember you're right to talk about that era. 87, 91.
Sadly missed the 95 World cup, but missed Lomu. Perhaps that was a good thing. But I remember when Wales lost to.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: No, I did miss them, actually.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: You did miss it.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Missed them.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: We'll come on to that. But when Wales lost to Western Samoa in 91, the Welsh capital could have been worse. We could have been playing all of Samoa, in which case we lost by a lot more.
But, you know, there were.
In those days, you know, we played against Canada and usa, who were quite competitive because professionalism has widened that gap quite significantly. I want to come on to that, but I want to just go back down memory lane a little bit, because obviously you're one of the few players who bridged the amateur and professional era. Obviously, you got multiple casts in Scotland. I think as a winger, it was what you did with your pace as opposed to how much you had, which is what I was always told when I played on the wing.
But your record stands testimony to your ability at that level. But correct me if I'm wrong. You had trials as a footballer. I haven't brought up cricket because I presume he didn't do any cricket. But you had trials as of cricket, a sport?
Ah, well, there we are, see, you're a farmer north of the border. Cricket probably didn't.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: I didn't see much cricket. The least I got to cricket was rounders.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Fair enough. Well move on swiftly from that, then.
Could have been baseball, could have been worse. But in terms of the football side of things, you had trials, but you didn't pursue them and you ended up rugged. So what. What was the thinking, that point?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: So I suppose I was. I played loads of sports and my cousins all played rugby. I grew up rugby all around me. Football was at school, was quite a football school. And then I got these trials for Hats and Dundee United.
And then it was the same night as I was doing rugby training. So I phoned up the guys, I can't make it. He goes, oh, you need to come if you want to get in the team as well. I might play rugby. And he went, what do you mean, you might play rugby? I said, I'm gonna. And then that was it. And then two weeks later, he pulled me back up and said, right, you've got past the trials. And I didn't go. You went over picking, you can come, but I get you to start. And then that's where to make the decision.
And my cousin went, no, no, you can't play football. You got to play rugby. And that was it.
So I just. I went with my cousin's thoughts.
I didn't. I was a goalkeeper.
And at that stage when I was young, you know, I just.
I lived in the rugby environment, right, ever since I was 7 years old. And then obviously, rugby took me in a great direction. You know, I remember When I was 15, I didn't get into Scotland and the 15s team. I was devastated. I was so devastated.
And actually, that was my bump in the road. I know that Sounds weird at 15, but that. That gave me that real sort of. Because I thought I'd get in. Everybody's going, oh, you'll definitely get in. You'll definitely get in. I didn't get in. I was really. I just wanted to give it up. And my cousin said to me, you're better than that. You won't. You'll remember this day and you'll always have that feeling for the rest of your life. And obviously, I did have downs followed later on my rugby career, but at the same time, I'd got that Real determinations in my heart. I didn't want to feel like that again at a young age. And then I was, I suppose, under 18s, under 19s, and one of my big moments, actually.
And when they say about taking a moment, it was Scotland in the 20s and I was only just 19, under 21s at the time.
Me and Gregor Townsend are playing and the touch judges and walking out behind Murrayfield, we played. There was Scottish students in those days, so the students could be 27, 28 or whatever, 20.
And we're playing against Scottish students as a warm up to our tournament. And one of the touch jersey said to me, said, if you play well today, I think you're getting to play in Australia. And I went, well, then the 21s going to Australia. And he went, no, the national team, we went, what?
So I was like, I was. I knew I was playing well for my club, but, you know, it felt like a massive jump from being under 19s. Playing for the. Playing for the 20 ones was a big thing for me, like up a grade. And then I had a stormer, I had an absolute stormer. And at the end of it, everybody's going, well played, Kenny Touch, just give me the old mate. You're going. I was like, this is bizarre. And then that night I got a phone call from the Scottish Rubber Union, saying, are you available to go to Australia? And I was like, yeah.
And then a month later, I'm on the plane with David Sowell, Gavin Hastings, Craig Chalmers, Ivan Tuccolo, Tony Stanger. And I'm like, you know, it was incredible. And I was just. I went to Australia, just turned 20 and again, back to. We talked earlier. You sat in the bench, you didn't get on. I sat in the bench twice, got on every time. Injuries, got on, played, played really well. I remember the first time I got on was against Queensland. So it was the Saudi team. I was sitting the bench. Peter Dodds was meant to be in the bench. He's got injured. I sat on the bench and I remember you have moments your career that you just flip yourself into a different environment. Like Henry Pollock's have that moment. Moment. And I had the moment against Queensland. Country. Queensland, Queensland, actually, country.
And Michael Liner. First thing saw me bang, big up and under, catch the high ball, take a mark, take a quick tap, hit this huge spiral, 60 yards, bounces with full back and goes out. And I remember going to that sort of like, couldn't believe it happened. And everybody just going like that. The boys, the experience, looked behind me and then we're 160 and the full back. There's a guy called Paul Caroza, the winger, and he sort of skinned something outside he'd made to beat to win the match. So I was like, I give him the outside, caught him in the corner, whistle went David. So picked me up, never said a word to me, just went out to me, looked at me, I'm still in shock. And that was my moment where I just got right, I can do this. I am right in the mix. And I ended up playing eight games out the nine games in the whole tour.
I got Player of the Tour, which is quite cool, at 9, 20 years old.
And that was my moment. But I just. That was my moment, right? And I also said, my son, there'll be a moment where you just get a hold of it and you've got to get hold of it. You just don't get loads of those moments.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: I think it's fantastic that you. You remember that so vividly. And the, the mantra, if you're good enough, you're old enough. You know, Tim Horan played in the World final at age 19. And I'm sure it's deliberate. You mentioned all those legendary Scottish names because they're the ones that give me that frisson, because I played in that terrible game up in Murrowfield that we lost in 1990, which is in Scottish history. They made a film on it, they wrote a book about it, whatever. But those names go into history and yours too, Kenny. So you sit there as a pro rugby player at the end of your career, and you started as an amateur, ended up as a pro. So how are you thinking about that, given that you're one injury away from never playing again or deselected? You know, these are massive issues, not just for. For in your day, but for current players. More money in the game now. But how did you. Were you aware of how you should plan for life after school?
[00:21:16] Speaker A: It's a good question. So. So my. I Left school at 16, severely dyslexic, couldn't read and write. My dad dies when I was 20 years old. Like literally two months after I got my Scotland cap in November, three months after I got my Scotland cap.
So I had to grow up very quickly. My brothers wanted to leave the farm, so I had to then work out how I'm going to do all that.
The game goes professional. First contract I was in, £4,000 a year at the farm and I had to pay digs on top of that. And my first contract was 50,000 Scottish Rubber Union I said to them, I can't sign it because I've got 100 cows to milk. I can't just walk away from them.
So I ended up doing six months of training and farming and I had loads of things in the farms. I used to plot things all around the farm, like weights and sprints. And so every time I went past that point I had to do 10 or something. So it could be 10 sprints back and forward, back and forward before I got to the tractor or had to go under this archway and then went under that. So we had 56. There's my arm and I had to go like a score and squat for like 10, 10 meters under the archway and then drop this, drop the weight. So sometimes I would go the long way around to do the sprints because I'd done that so many times. So I had loads of little things like that.
And then I was. Rugby was a hobby, right? It was a hobby. You'd go to Twickenham, play in front of 70,000 people and the next day I'm at home delivering 5 tons of manure to a ladies garden. And she knows that you're off the telly from yesterday and playing against England. So it was a great thing to go professional. And then what happened for me was because I was in the farm, I then got an offer from Wasps. I had loads of, well, not say loads of offers, but I went to Newcastle, had a lot of English clubs because I still hadn't signed and I was still playing international rugby and they knew my situation. And Nigel Melva said, right, come down on Thursday, train Thursday night, train Friday, play Saturday, go back up to the farm and do that till the end of the season. So I joined WAST in February 97 or 90, 97 season.
And they offered me 150 grand, which is slightly different. Back in the day was a lot of money, which would be 97. Yeah, almost 30 years ago and.
And we got big win bonuses and all that and we won the league.
I got five tries my debut and like I scored 12 tries in 10 games. I had a really great start. I loved it, I loved it and I loved the whole excitement going professional. And as obviously you got more and more and more professional as it went on, you had your ups and downs. But I loved that whole transition. Within that transition. I set up my sports marketing agency because I realized I wasn't going to go back to farming.
I liked meeting people. I thought I was quite good at certain things.
I couldn't read and write. I met a Good business partner who could do all that and more than I could do. And then we just grew from there.
It was enjoyable to do that alongside my rugby career.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: And I think it's, I mean, your whole context of preparing for life after sport. Do you think professional rugby players either get the opportunity or should in today's world? You've got a son who's very talented and who knows what's going to happen.
But do you think that the game of rugby, the sport which attracts so much commercialization, et cetera, do you think it tells its players to prepare enough?
[00:25:00] Speaker A: I think they do, but it's the player's action. You could tell them a hundred times, the player's got to take the action.
I think there's a lot of young players now doing stuff, creating their own little businesses. You know, I spoke to Finn Russell the other day. He's involved in three or four businesses. They understand they've got to do that.
I think, for example, my son's already. He's not that he's maybe wanting to do that, but he wants. He's doing a PT course because he said, I want to understand my body. If I'm going to be getting my body, doing stuff, I want to understand it more. So he's thinking about it and he's 20. So I like that he's seen what I've done and he's seen it's not easy.
So I think a lot of young players, how much you could keep telling them they've got to make the decision, they've got to do it. I think what we can do is older players or business people can help advise them in a good way, you know, help give them a leg up.
So I think there's definitely a change of. You hear a lot of young players now going, oh, I'm doing this stuff for my mate, I might not work. And actually, I sometimes say to them, I said, look, if it doesn't work, you. You learn from that process, right? And then when you get to a situation, you'll be in a good place to do the right thing. But we've got to encourage it. Definitely.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: I think any company that gets involved in our sport, and I've said this for a while, I've been involved in administration of rugby for many years, that you should actively involve yourself as a company and offer out, whether it be services or opportunities to players, you know, if you get the benefit from sponsoring or being involved in selling products to a professional sport. And with rugby having that not unique aspect of, you know, but It's a lot of injuries take place, a lot of career ending injuries, and that help needs to happen and I think they should formalize it personally. But look, that's a much bigger topic. It's good to hear that there's so much focus on it now, because there should be. But one of the things that come.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: There's also an issue, Simon, it's when they do retire, you're a legend. You're a legend and suddenly you're not your ex and you fall in this.
And there's a lot of players who don't feel they've got much worth anymore. It's a bit like leaving the army when you did all that stuff for Help for Heroes. Definitely mental health's a big issue and that whole process of transition because imagine turning to somebody that said, 32 years old, you're not doing that anymore, you never have to start again.
And they've been very successful. So the transitions that we need to make sure we get that transition right. And what you said earlier of businesses coming in, I generally think sponsors, when they come in, they should have say, like, you're in, you're sponsoring the club, but you've also got to do some development stuff for staff, as in players, to help them. They might not enjoy it. They might, some players might go and say, right, I don't know if it says set working for a car company, some people might enjoy that, some people might not. But they need to, need to find what they want to do and it's a good way of just testing it one day a week, getting that feeling. So I think it's definitely important that sponsors really push that and clubs too, and actually players associations should do the same. Try and push these sponsors to get them involved in the business 100%.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: And I think you've touched on a couple of things I want to now explore. You talked about mental health and, you know, adversity, which has been through your life and Gabby's, you know, in terms of, you know, your, the public eye that you're in and your ability to help, but you've had your own adversities to deal with. And in a period where we've just learned about the diagnosis of the former England captain Lewis Moody with motor neurone disease. I want to just start, start this piece off by talking about what. Obviously Donnie has brought us two together in many ways through his illness and some of the work we've done together, but you are the face of the motor neuron disease.
Fight through the. My name's Doddy foundation in many ways, and you continue that fight. We all promised Dottie we'd keep going. How have you found one? Using the adversity that you've been through, come out the other side to bring yourself into that world of helping other people which you're doing. You and Gabby have done a lot of that. But just tell me the My name's Doddy foundation story in a nutshell, because I think it encapsulates so many of those.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: Well, thanks very much.
I think the foundation, the likes of Rob Wainwright, myself, and there's the likes, there's a whole lot of volunteers, individuals that have been amazing, but also the likes of Rob Burrows and Ed Slater, you know, Kevin Sinfield. There's a lot of people put their hands up and raised a lot of money, and we're all doing it for the same cause, to find a cure for people with M and D.
Obviously, Doddy is somebody that I played with and he was a farmer and he sort of looked after me a little bit. I think when I was playing, I was a bit of a daft lad. He was a bit of a daft lad. And we got on really well and we had some good battles in the pitch and it was different positions, but, you know, if I was the bottom of a rock, I got punched by him. You know, he just hit me like that and like, thanks, Doddy. I never hit him back, really. I did once and the next time he hit me harder. So I thought, I'll just maybe not hit him back.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Was he was a Doddy punch, a bad punch. I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't like being hit by a Springbok, was it, being hit by a Doddy?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Oh, no, no. But he did punch me, you know, it was like on field bullying, as I would say. But so, you know, he.
I think the big thing for the. The shock of him having it and we all sort of knew the Just fan of S Season and Jerry Cunningham.
It was heartbreaking to. To see somebody go through it, but also so proud of how he dealt with it and how he changed a horrific disease into something as positive as he could about finding a cure and making it and giving everybody else. With M and D, you know, every day there's five people diagnosed and five people die, right, every day in the uk. So he was giving them a voice and they felt that somebody was fighting their corner and he fought that corner. And I suppose when he said to me about the foundation, I said to him, I said, well, let's build a Brand, right. Let's forget, let's not build a charity, let's build a brand that fingers crossed that when you're not here, the brand can still survive and not die or lose its momentum. And actually the momentum's doubled almost since he's passed because he'd built such a movement behind it. People won't let you like things that you've done, sport and wine club and your support, because people are desperate to see his legacy. And I want, I'd love to be able to turn around in two, three years time and say, Jody, you started this movement and we've continued legacy.
You know, the sad news about Lewis Moody is heartbreaking again because he's such a nice man.
[00:32:10] Speaker B: He's.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: It's just, I mean I still, it's just heartbreaking.
I see a lot of him, Doddy and him and him and Doddy, because Doddy was slightly stubborn. Lewis is stubborn, very focused, very confident of try to find a cure. And Lewis said to me, when Doddy was, when he went to see his professor, the professor said when Doddy was diagnosed there was no hope.
He says now I can say there is hope.
And for a professor to say there's hope is good because they don't, they're not going to over stimulate a situation and they're going to give you the tiny little bit of hope. And he said there's hope.
And he said, well, that's good enough for me. I'm going to try and change that. So I think.
How horrific it is, but somebody like Lewis will take the disease to another level because of who he is across the uk, across the world.
And it'll be another dial change, it'll be another lift of professors moving, getting the, moving the dial forward. And how amazing would it be if we can find something that can make an impact in Lewis's life and all the other people have got M and D.
Absolutely right.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: And I think I. The. I think what comes across here also the ability of people in the public eye to affect change and you know, the response, the gratitude that we all feel for been given the chance to play sport at the highest level. And this goes in business as well. You know, you reach the top of anything, you have a, not just a chance, but sometimes a responsibility to use that in a positive way. And you know, we talked about the fight against mnd, but there's also, I think the statistics now show prostate cancer being, I think, the most common form of cancer of any sort, outweighing breast cancer even.
And you know, you've had prostate cancer and you had the courage to stand up and talk about it, because you know then and again, going through the system of what people do, talk about, what they don't talk about, what they can open up to.
You have advertised the fact your struggles with it, you know, what you had to go through, and there's thousands of people going through that. But you've been able. How have you found that ability to communicate across and feel that you're able to affect change and affect changes in attitude towards this particular illness?
[00:34:50] Speaker A: I suppose so. When I was younger, being dyslexic, I hid behind the screen. I hid behind me being loud, me being in people's faces so I wouldn't get asked to do stuff.
And I was never brave enough to tell Jim tell for Ian McGeek. And I couldn't read him, right? And I look back now and I wish I was brave. I wish I'd been brave to tell them, look, I'm struggling to read and write. I can't do that. But I thought it was a weakness because I was told at school, that's thick. You're stupid. So I didn't come out about being dyslexic. I was about 28 years old, 29 years old, and I think when I got prostate cancer, we're very lucky to have a platform.
And Gabby and I, and she had her podcast, the Midpoint. So I said to her, let's do day by day or month by month. So the day I got diagnosed, I did a podcast about how I felt. And then a month later, and then we did this podcast, which I think is our best ever podcast download because so many women and men have listened to it. I have a lot of people come to me and say, I've got prostate cancer. I've been told by the specialist to listen to your podcast with your wife because it's very honest and it gives you a real feel of what you go through.
I felt I get a little bit emotional thinking about it, because I didn't tell Doddy about it, because there was a cure for me, there was a process for me getting helped. And he gave me a bit of a. Why'd you not tell me? You know, I said, well, I didn't want to tell you because I'm going to be fine, right?
But there's a lot of people with cancer, prostate cancer, who are not fine. And the biggest problem that is because we don't get tested at 45 or 50, we should go and get tested. And I even heard recently a Friend of my, A guy came up to me and said, he went to get tested and the doctor said, have you get any symptoms?
And he went, do I need symptoms? Because if you've got a symptom, you should get you tested. He's a 50 year old man and he said, Kenny Logan got prostate cancer. He had no symptoms. I want to get tested. So he had to have a debate with the doctor, the doctor. So it's still out there that. Having to push this, push the, the door open. So we had a platform to tell that story and, and I, and I thought, do I tell a story that is I tell the what, what the whole scenario scenario. And I just felt it was right to tell the whole scenario, maybe to get people talking about it and thinking about it. If you just come and say, I'll go and get checked, does that make an impact?
I talked about the whole, you know, what you go through. A man can go through erectile dysfunction, a man can go through this. You know, it's interesting. I actually, I think now if I had rectile dysfunction, would I talked about it, I don't know, would I stood up and said, I've got erectile dysfunction, which I haven't.
I'm very lucky, right?
I would have been brave enough to do it then. I don't know, because that's putting yourself in another. And I get a lot of men come up to me and say, what did you do? How did you know they've got rectal dysfunction. They're 50 year old or 49 years old, they've had prostate cancer.
When I went through it, I just wanted prostate out my. I wanted you out my life. I didn't want any cancer in my body.
So I said, get it out. I wasn't even thinking about rectal dysfunction.
And then once you get out, you go, God, I hope I'm all right. Because I do want that part of my life to work right.
And it's a big decision for a man. But I was rather be alive than, you know, and then worry about that other situation and that other bit.
You know, maybe within three or four months I was functioning well and I was very lucky.
But I think positive mindset is a big thing, you know? You know, Doddy was unbelievably positive. You know, I used to phone him up and I mean, Doddy got a lot. We gave him a. He, he wanted to, he. I remember Doddie saying to us, whatever you do, don't just treat me like a patient. I'm Doddy Weir and I Used to phone him up and go, alright, mate, how are you doing? He goes, kenny, I'm shit, I've got M and D, you idiot. You know, he was. And I was like, oh, no, it's just. I meant, how you doing? You know what I mean? And Gary Armstrong said to him, he said, listen, Doddy, if you think I'm gonna fill those potholes in your driveway, you can think again. You can do it. I'm not filling your potholes. So we had. The humor was still there and I was speaking to Leah Lloyd last night, and the humor with him and Lewis and all the boys, they're not going to change. The humor has to be there and you have to treat people with illnesses with the same thing. And I didn't want.
I was lucky that I got something that could be treated right.
I don't know, this sounds weird, but I almost felt guilty in a way because of, I've got a mate who's dying and I got something. If you get tested, you can. Realistically, if you get tested and you get monitored, you're not going to get. You're not going to die. With prostate cancer, it's like 99% people who get diagnosed and they go through a process, they're not going to get prostate, they're going to get looked after. That's why it's so important to go and get tested. It's so important.
[00:40:09] Speaker B: And it's the awareness raising as well. And I think, you know, coming out of all of what you said and you, you talked about Helpful Heroes is actually the first time we did something. Yeah, tattoos, you know, and I think, I think you just come off Strictly Come Dancing, you try to teach some dance moves post match, but, you know, the, the ability, the power of sport. And in that sense, with Healthy Heroes, it was raising awareness of wounded, injured and sick soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. But the power of sport to make transformation is incredible.
It is incredible. And I think we go back, you know, I'm in the country where probably the best example exists ever, where Nelson Mandela embraced the nation and all the adversity that that nation had been going through. And he embraced that and said, I'm going to change this through sport. And I think you ultimately, that's the power that you have as an individual to actually bring awareness.
And I guess in a way, whether it be sport, people top of business, sometimes they underestimate the ability to change people's lives just through awareness.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: It's not so much, I suppose a lot of times I'm in the toilet. And guys come out and go, I've got prostate cancer. I've had it. I've listened. And. And then they just chatting to you about it, right? And some of the weirdest places, they just come up and speak to me. And. And I think it's good that one guy said to me he would never have even thought about speaking to me, but he said, I saw you, and I thought, I'm gonna go and do it. And his wife said to me, he would never have thought. He. He said, I'm gonna go and speak to him. He said, that's not my husband. He said, but because you were so open, he felt he could do that. And if we can do that and he can help somebody else, I would say, well, this month I've done one call a week of people who I know have said, will you speak to a mate? He's got prostate cancer. He just wants to speak to somebody who's had it. And I've spent an hour with him or whatever, and I've done four this month, actually. So I would say I'm at least two a month. People that have.
So there's a lot of people out there with prostate cancer.
So, as my surgeon said, it's a silent disease, but you can catch it early by just getting tested, you know, don't say I've got no symptoms, because that's the worst thing. You don't need symptoms.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: No. Well, listen, more power to your elbow, and I'm sure everyone thanks you for having the courage to bring that out into the open.
Are you going to be equally courageous to tell me which. We talked about Jonah Lomu earlier on in the. In the podcast.
He. Someone said to me, simon, you were very lucky to miss him by a year or two. And I said, well, perhaps he was lucky to miss me. We'll never know, will we?
[00:43:08] Speaker A: That's a big talking Pointers.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Well, listen, the one change of the England backline when Lomu destroyed us in South Africa was that I wasn't on the wing. I called up Carly and said, you know, did you miss me?
He said, well, I'm not sure you'd have got there to make the tackle, Hallers, but did you actually miss Jonah Lomu? Did it or did he?
[00:43:28] Speaker A: So glad. I was so glad he was on the left wing and I was the left wing, but I remember that season. So it was 95 World cup, and the other winger was Craig Joiner, and he wanted to play in the left wing. And I went, I've been playing the left wing. All my life I saw it was coming. I knew that he was a left winger. I thought I'm still in the left wing. And he had some.
It was a heart. I mean whoever played against him, didn't matter who you were, he could just toss you aside, back row forwards, props. He either pushed you, over, stepped around you, went through you. He was incredible.
And such a nice man.
Such a nice man. I was lucky to play with him for the Barbarians and just a great individual, humble man and blessed is obviously.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: He passed away a while back, but I'm getting up. It's funny how these things all come together because in the person who people credit, I'm sure it wasn't just him with decking him a number of times in the World cup final. Legally of course was just van der Westhausen who who stepped in and tackled him multiple times. Obviously sadly died of mnd. And takes us back full circle in many ways.
And we will never forget Jonah for his humility, but his incredible, incredible talent and presence on the field and game changing abilities.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: He made rugby professional because in 95 World cup the world was talking about rugby because of this man during limo.
You know, Americans were talking about him. He was going to American famous. Americans wanted pictures with him. This giant, giant individual he was, he became a hero. Adidas made him the face of Adidas for the year. You know, he, he became a rock star. And rugby went professional at the back of that because the game gets such hype because of him. And then 95 World Cup Nelson Mandela partite, amazing World cup loved it. Great. I love South Africa, one of my favorite countries.
And after that World cup the game's suddenly a different, different game. We're now professional, we're getting paid. And Jonah was part of that.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Do you know, I think we're almost out of time, but I'm going to just suggest that when we go. One of my mantras, going back to the future, some of the old, the old values and people talk about raising the profile of individuals within our game, which I think is right because we've lost a bit of character.
And you know, people go, it's the day job or it's a bad day at the office. Well, go back to, you know, the way that people responded to a Jonah Lomu or the other stars of those times. We gotta go back to that and create real excitement and you know, yeah.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Henry Pollock's doing that. Henry Pollock's doing that.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Henry Pollock's doing.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean he's a top boy. He's a great Ladies.
I've known him for a couple of years, but Ruben, actually, him and Ruben are best mates and they lived together for two years at Northampton. They've known each other for a long time. He's a real character.
He enjoys the moment, he loves the whole occasion. And he's in it. And he brings energy, he brings young people, he brings this different individual. And I think. I genuinely think he's making a big impact in England because the players, loving them. There's a real smile with that England team, you know, and you've got to have some character and it's so important. And we need more of these people in the game because the game is. It's a great. It's a great sport. He's loving every minute of it. And he will have a downtime at some stage, but wire up, enjoy it, my friend.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: I mean, I remember when, you know, confronting the haker, right, which is one of the. We used to sit down in rooms debating what we would do. We ignore it, put our tracksuit on. Would we look in the sky? What would we do? And then we had David Campisi, who was on a podcast with us a while back, who blew kisses at them.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: Then you had one, remember, they walked to the corner and just waved at the crowd. And.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: The Irish team marched on the haka with Willie Anderson and Wayne Shelford said he was about to hit him in the face before the game had even started.
And then you had Cockerell in the face of Oliver in that famous event up at Manchester. So when Henry Pollard's licking his lips and looking a bit kind of interested, they focus on it and start criticizing him for disrespecting the hacker. I'm going, are you kidding me? You know, everyone's got a way to sort it out. And look at the end of it, Henry had the last laugh. And that's all you need. You just need to have the last laugh. And it does it, doesn't it?
[00:48:17] Speaker A: I think that years ago, you used to be able to walk right into the faces, used to be able to go right around them, right? But now you've got to this distance because they're worried about whatever's going to happen. Well, there's not going to be a fight, are they? Because we don't fight anymore.
So I think we should be allowed to challenge the hacker. You know, we should be allowed to get in that. Create that and heated environment.
But the hacker is. You've. You've come up against. I've come up against it. I mean, I put the All Blacks six or seven times. It's incredible. It's brilliant.
It's amazing when you're standing there watching these guys doing that to you and you've got respect. That's their culture. Right. You've got to respect it. And it's brilliant. I love it. I mean, people said it should be banned, it shouldn't be banned.
You know what I mean?
It's their national anthem and that's their thing.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So look, I think as we progress towards the Rugby World cup, we're out of time, but as we progress towards Rugby World cup and I guess South Africa is ahead of everybody else, but there's plenty of time for that to converge a little bit, even for Scotland to nail it in the second half of matches, which they're not doing, obviously. I've said with England, who got good momentum, no doubt, but they've got to go to Murrayfield, they've got to go to Paris and these are going to be two massive challenges for them. So they've got a lot of good.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Players, England's got a lot of good players.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: They do.
But look, Kenny, it's been a real privilege.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Cool. I want to thank Mass Group, who sponsored this call. Who? In a world where digital assets, crypto, gold, silver, foreign exchange, we're in a Trumpian world of fast moving markets. So thank you to Mass for sponsoring this podcast.
We've covered so much stuff. Kenny. I think it's, you know, you cross over so many different pieces of sport and business and charity and your contribution is measured in many different ways. But first and foremost, you're a great mate. And from one winger to another, let's keep dreaming of those runs we used to make. And we'll see you again soon. And thank you very much. That's it from Halas Playbook.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: Halas, can I just thank you for the support you've given the foundation and many other charities too. So thank you.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: It's a pleasure and we'll keep doing it till next time, everybody.
