2GS The Sunday Times May 1, 2022 15there. As long as the doors are left ajar
you can squeeze your way through.
“I do a lot of work with the Premier
League under their Player Care Pro-
gramme. We go and speak to the play-
ers who are under-12 to under-23.
“We’re not going in telling them
that they’re not going to achieve their
dream of playing football, but it’s
more about understanding what to do
as a Plan B.
“Their sport might be going great
but it’s not going to last for ever so
what do they do next? There’s a lot of
noise around athletes when they tran-
sition, but the noise lasts for a short
period while they’re still in the head-
lines and after a while drops down.”
Lloyd still follows Leicester avidly,
and Saturday’s match will bring back
the fondest memories. “We always
said that the Heineken Cup was differ-
ent gravy,” he says. “When we were
preparing for the Heineken Cup we
wore different kit, to train and to play
in; we even trained on a different
pitch, and it was a privilege to get
selected for the Heineken Cup squad.
“You could play Wasps one week in
the league, and then two identical
teams might play the next week in the
Heineken Cup, and it is a completely
different result, completely different
atmosphere, the intensity was raised.
I miss those Heineken Cup weekends.
They were amazing times.”‘I went through a
tricky time when I
retired, losing all
those networks and
everything I had
developed’
Lloyd, 44, now runs a business
helping retired sportspeoplefirst time. “The first one came after
Pat Howard kicked across the field,”
he says. “On the video it looks amaz-
ing, it looks like he’s picked Geordan
Murphy out and literally landed it in
his hands, but actually it had come off
the side of his foot.
“But Geordy caught it and in typical
George Best style, drew the full back.
He kicked the ball around one side
and I ran round the other as if we had
practised it week after week, except
that we hadn’t. It just happened
instinctively, and then it was just a
foot race for me.”Quarter-finals
Saturday Munster v Toulouse (3pm),
Leicester v Leinster, La Rochelle v
Montpellier (both 5.30pm)
Sunday Racing 92 v Sale (3pm)Semi-finals
May 13-15 Racing 92 / Sale v La
Rochelle / Montpellier; Leicester /
Leinster v Munster / ToulouseFinal
May 28 Marseille (4.45pm)6 All matches live on BT SportCHAMPIONS CUP
KNOCKOUT ROUNDSStade still led in the dying
moments. Then Lloyd came again.
Austin Healey appeared to be loitering
in midfield but then he took off like a
scalded cat, raced through the lines of
defence and found Lloyd with a per-
fect long pass. Lloyd ran on to score in
the corner through a desperate tackle.
It was, for the Tigers, joyous.
“For me the Heineken Cup was
everything,” Lloyd says. “It was my
best time in a rugby shirt, even more
so than my England debut. We had a
team reunion last year and even the
England World Cup-winners like
Backy [Neil Back] and Johnno [Martin
Johnson] put the Heineken final up
there with that. My dream had been to
play football and to score in the final
but even to play in that game, with two
great sides, and the manner in which
we won it was out of this world.”
Lloyd, now 44, says that because he
suffered from impostor syndrome, he
was never quite as confident as he
might have appeared and was always
fretting on selection. “There are times
when you wonder if you should be
there, that one day you’re going to be
found out,” he adds.
Perhaps oddly, too, that anxiety
was the driving force not only in his
rugby career but in a business life of
startling merit. It was a lack of confi-
dence that launched his career after
rugby rather than an abundance of it.
“I went through a tricky time when
I retired, losing all those networks and
everything I had developed through
sport,” he says. “I had never really
planned for not being part of a
close-knit team with all that
camaraderie and all the great stuff. I
was blind-sided by it.
“And I knew that there was an issue
which was going to get bigger and big-
ger.” He had already made a point of
making as many contacts as he could
in the corporate world when in the
hospitality boxes, “I hadn’t gone to
university and done those other
things so I needed to reinforce my
practical experiences,” he says.
No likely candidate for future
advice was allowed to pass by and he
worked for nothing in every depart-
ment at Welford Road to get to know
the world off the pitch. He was then
given a job at Oakham School inRutland — a marketing and promotion
role — which he thrived in.
Soon, he was rising up through the
company ranks, the snatched chats he
had with his old Tigers colleagues
informing his expertise in the “what
next” field (it was known as “ask
Lloydy”). Soon it transformed into a
flat-out career and has been success-
ful ever since. Life After Sport: From
Boot Room to Boardroom, the book he
had published in 2015, has become a
staple text for retiring players.
And now, with a degree and doctor-
ate complete in a mature academic
career, he works for Centrum Solu-
tions, a business that he co-founded
who advise former sportsmen and
women of all kinds about moving into
the wider world.
“Doors were closed at rugby clubs
and the Premier League football
teams because you’d have to go
through the manager to get to the
players,” he explains. “No manager
wants you speaking to their players if
you’re talking about what comes after
sport because they’re not concerned
with that. They’re only concerned
with the team winning.
“All of a sudden, now I can talk
about the benefits to a manager or a
coach, of the tangible benefits that
your players will be better, and that
you win more games, because that
anxiety of what comes next is notLloyd bursts
through to
score one of
his two tries
for Leicester
in the 2001
Heineken
Cup finalDAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES; MICHAEL POWELL FOR THE SUNDAY TIMESby Rayner, using what was described
by one observer as “a hectoring
tone”. He insisted that Bailey was
OK to continue. “I am a doctor,”
he said to the referee. The argument
was also joined by another member
of the England backroom staff who
at one stage was apparently, and
unforgivably, angling for the
blameless Italian player to be
dismissed, when it was none of his
business whatsoever.
Groizeleau knew her stuff and
waved the pair away, saying three
words that should go down in
immortality: “Thank you, bye.” They
departed with little grace.
What offends in particular is that
the wording of the judgment on the
shocking pressure exerted on the
referee comes right at the bottom of
the last page of endless unrelated
rigmarole. The panel also appear to
have treated the offences of the
doctor in the same light as a yellow
card for a high tackle with mitigation.
Surely it was way, way more than
that. It was an offence against
modern injury prevention, but also
timeless courtesy.No one is suggesting that the
England camp put pressure on their
doctor in Treviso to keep a player
on who may have been senseless (if
they had done so then the sport is
doomed), but I believe that Rayner’s
behaviour was outrageous, and
undermined completely World
Rugby’s policies.
How come he was back so soon
for committing acts that the panel
found to be “unacceptable” and
“grave”? He was found guilty of three
separate offences.
The panel, which included five
doctors — more than a whole series
of Casualty — ruled that he had
served his sentence, having stood
down to wait for the hearing. He
got another chunk off for previous
good behaviour. Whatever — the
fact that he was allowed to return less
then a week after he was found guilty
is deplorable.
The media document passing on
the news of the judgment was
headed: “For immediate release.”
Yes, immediate, after 11 weeks. And,
in the belated finale, no one bar a
brave referee emerged with credit.Hull FC eased to a 48-12 win over
Toulouse to move into the top four
of the Betfred Super League. It was
their fifth successive win at home
and demonstrated an
impressive strength in
depth in the face of key
absences.
With Luke Gale and
Josh Reynolds, their
vastly experienced half
backs, both
suspended, Hull paired
together hookers in
Jordan Johnstone and Joe
Lovodua, who blended
seamlessly at six and seven.
Connor Wynne, inset, came in at
centre for Mitieli Vulikijapani, who
was on rugby union duty for the
Army against the Navy at
Twickenham, and scored three
tries. Darnell McIntosh alsocollected a hat-trick in a rout of the
bottom side. Lovodua, Denive
Balmforth, on debut at 18, and Kane
Evans got the other tries.
Hull tailed off badly last year
under Brett Hodgson, as
their Australian coach
noted. “There’s a long
way between now and
the end of the season,
but we’re heading in
the right direction,”
said Hodgson, for
whom the play-offs are a
must.
Toulouse have failed to win
on their travels and arrived at MKM
Stadium four points adrift after one
win in ten. They scored the opening
try through Junior Vaivai but were
all at sea after that, falling 26-6
behind by half-time and conceding
nine tries in all.RUGBY LEAGUE HULL IMPRESS TO
MOVE INTO SUPER LEAGUE TOP FOURThe doctor’s actions
were an offence
against injury
prevention but also
timeless courtesy
STUART
BARNES
To read his column on where
the battle of Leicester and
Leinster will be won,go to
THESUNDAYTIMES.CO.UK/SPORT