10 ***^ Sunday 1 September 2019 The Sunday Telegraph
Sport Rugby Union
Paratriathlete who lost his
legs in Afghanistan usesdark humour to deal with
life, reveals Molly McElweeJ
oe Townsend describes
himself as goal-driven.
Spending an afternoon with
him, where he recounted how
he became a Paralympian,
confirmed that definition to
be an understatement.
Like any paratriathlete, his daily
training grind is full of targets.
Alongside this is his larger aim:
making the podium at Tokyo 2020.
But less than a decade ago his goals
looked very different, starting with
how many forkfuls of food he had the
strength to lift to his mouth.
Townsend stepped on a landmine in
Afghanistan while deployed as a Royal
Marine in 2008, losing his legs to end
the career he had dedicated his life to
achieving just shy of his 20th birthday.
But even in that moment, after
being flung into the air by the
explosion and landing, conscious, with
one leg missing and the other barely
hanging on, Townsend’s goal-setting- and intensive military training – took
over. His aim now: do not pass out.
“I wasn’t in pain, I was fully lucid,
but I had this overwhelming desire to
fall asleep. I knew the second I closed
my eyes I wouldn’t be coming off the
battlefield so I was chatting to the lads,
trying to crack jokes. It’s kind of
military dark humour that in the worst
situations we revert to,” he says.
About an hour after the explosion
he was airlifted off the battlefield and
he awoke at hospital in Birmingham a
day later, where he continued his dark
humour streak. When informed by a
well-meaning nurse that both his legs
had been amputated, his response
was, “No s---, I trod on a landmine.”
That is not to say anything about his
situation was funny: he endured more
than 50 operations and on multiple
occasions his family were summoned
to the intensive care unit to say their
last goodbyes.
Despite now relying almost entirely
on those around him “like a newborn
baby”, he focused on new goals.
Something as simple as sitting up in
bed on his own was noted as a victory.
But, after months of rehab and
living independently again, he admits
his progress “plateaued” as he felt like
he had lost the drive that defined him.
“I realised I didn’t have anything
else to strive for. I went into a lull of
not knowing what to do with my life.
I remember looking in the mirror – I
was 26 kilos heavier than I am now,
half my body weight – and thinking,
‘this isn’t you’.“So I started training and it gave me
the confidence to try adaptive sports.
[From there] the goals kept escalating.”
First he targeted an ironman event
in 2011, buoyed by a mantra he had
newly tattooed on his arm: I will find a
way or make one.
“It summed up life now. It would be
so easy to be limited by a disability, I
just need to find a way around it,” he
says in the same matter-of-fact way he
parks his chair where the wheelchair
access path ends, halfway down the
Eastbourne shore front, and then
crawls down the rest of the pebbled
beach to the sea to swim.
Overcoming obstacles was now a
part of his life, the ironman was no
different. He had started hand-cycling
and racing in a wheelchair at Headley
Court, the rehab facility for injured
service personnel, but had yet to
relearn how to swim since his injury.
He was advised to form part of a teampeople and beating a lot of them – as
well as beating the millions of people
who would never even dream of
attempting it – I thought, ‘The Royal
Marine in me is back’. If I can do this,
what can’t I do?”
Next he cycled 3,000 miles across
the US with an injured service
personnel relay team. A few years later
he did it again, only faster. He says his
experience as a Royal Marine, in
particular his injury, means he can
push himself further than most.
“I feel I’ve got an advantage
sometimes. I’ve been in worse places,
so when my heart and lungs are
absolutely screaming or my body
wants to give up, I can override it.”
He uses it in his professional career,
one he pursued after finding the sport
would be in the 2016 Paralympic
Games. He qualified for Team GB to
reach sport’s pinnacle just eight years
after his injury. Then, last year he
became Commonwealth champion.
Today, Townsend, one of the
Telegraph Eight who we are tracking
all the way to the Olympics, competes
at the ITU World Series Grand Final in
Lausanne. Ranked fourth, Townsend
will be a medal contender at Tokyo
2020 in the likely event he qualifies.
Though his goals have grown
exponentially, Townsend says his
small victories in a hospital bed were
just as important: “I got the same
satisfaction from each of those goals.
They seem so trivial but it’s what gave
me the light to stay positive.”
He also says, given the choice, he
would not switch his life now for
anything – not least because he met
his wife, the mother of his young son,
at Headley Court during rehab.
“I’m lucky to go from one job that I
thought was the best in the world to
another which is even better. I miss
being a Royal Marine but there’s no
way I’d say I wish it never happened.”
For all he has lost and gained, his
military-minded dark humour
remains: his Instagram bio reads,
“Allergic to bombs”.Staying positive:
Joe Townsend
says he is lucky to
have gone from ‘the
best job in world to
another which is
even better’Allergic to bombs; focused on Paralympics
‘When my heart and
lungs are absolutely
screaming or my
body wants to give
up, I can override it’
to avoid the 2.4-mile open water swim,
but that is not Townsend’s style. After
many frustrating rehab sessions spent
sinking to the pool floor, he finally
taught himself to swim again and
finished the ironman on his own.
“Competing against able-bodiedSchmidt joy as Irish put Twickenham
Gatland declares: ‘Quarter-final is step one’
Wales
17
Ireland
22
By Tom Cary
at the Principality Stadium
Such are the vagaries of World Rugby’s
ranking system that despite their an-
nus horribilis, culminating in last
weekend’s 57-15 shellacking at Twick-
enham, Ireland would have replaced
Wales as the No 1 team in the world had
they won by more than 15 points.
They almost did it, too. At one point
in the second half Joe Schmidt’s team
were 22-3 up and cruising, albeit
against Wales’s reserves.
The two late tries they conceded as
Wales finally came to life in a farewell
match Warren Gatland described as
“emotional” are unlikely to bother
Schmidt unduly. He will just be re-
lieved that a vastly improved showing;
has breathed a bit of life into their stut-
tering World Cup campaign.
There is only so much you can read
into warm-up games, of course. Nei-
ther team were close to full strength.
And the game was played in front of a
strangely subdued crowd. But after
Twickenham, it was a hugely welcome
win from an Irish perspective, with a
number of fringe players putting their
hands up for World Cup selection.
Dave Kilcoyne was monstrous in the
first half, making eight tackles, win-
ning two scrum penalties, carrying for
31 metres and beating five defenders
including Josh Navidi and Samson Lee
in the build-up to Jacob Stockdale’s
first try. Will Addison and Andrew
Conway had fine games, while James
Ryan made a difference in the engine
room. Even those who might have
been mentally scarred from last week-
end looked sharper.
Perhaps that was just Stockdale’s
haircut. Like Samson in reverse, the
Ulster wing was a man reborn without
the flowing mane that adorned his
bonce last weekend.
Schmidt will also have been de-
lighted with Jack Carty at fly-half. With
Joey Carbery still injured and Jonathan
Sexton soon to emerge from his bub-
ble-wrap, Schmidt desperately needed
another fly-half to step up. Carty, on his
fourth cap, was man of the match.
Schmidt as good as admitted
the Connacht man had earnt his
plane ticket to Japan, although
he did note that Ross Byrne, the
other name in the frame, had
been “incredibly unlucky” to
have played behind a flimsy
pack at Twickenham.
Gatland, who names
his squad today, prob-
ably learnt less. Rhys
Patchell and Tomos
Williams made a
difference in the
second half, with
Patchell – whose
try five minutes
from time got
Wales back to
within five points –
By Charlie Morgan
at the Principality StadiumWarren Gatland could not sign off with
a victory in his final home match in
Cardiff, but insisted Wales would head
to the World Cup with the best squad of
his 12-year tenure and designs on the
knockout stages.
In his pre-match interview with
broadcaster Channel 4, Gatland admit-
ted to becoming overcome with emo-
tion at the team hotel before making
the short journey to the Principality
Stadium. He saluted an “incredible ride
and incredible journey with players
and management”, also paying tribute
to the country of Wales.
However, Ireland, and particularlytheir powerful pack, were in no mood
for charity. A flurry of scrum penalties
helped carve out a 22-3 lead for the vis-
itors with a revitalised Jacob Stockdale
scoring two opportunistic tries, the
second coming after Aaron Shingler’s
errant offload went to ground.
Ireland had added a penalty try as
another Wales set-piece disintegrated,
and Gatland promised to pay close at-
tention to the scrum in his review.
Without hiding his disappointment,
he labelled the afternoon as a “good ex-
ercise” ahead of retiring to finalise his
31-man group for Japan, which will be
announced this afternoon.
“I’m happy with a lot that we got out
of today,” he said. “This group of play-
ers never give up. We were creators of
our own downfall at times.”The chief injury concern will be lock
Cory Hill, who has a leg fracture that
may keep him out until the third pool
match against Australia in Tokyo. Ross
Moriarty is expected to feature despite
a hip complaint. Whoever makes the
cut, Gatland is confident.
“I think it’s the best squad in terms of
the depth we’ve got,” he added. “We’ve
got an excellent forward group, some
real leadership and experience.
“If we do pick up a few injuries like
we did in 2015, I think we’d be able to
cope so much better. We’ll be very dis-
appointed if we don’t make the quar-
ter-finals and that’s step one.”
Gatland had billed the Ireland en-
counter as a shoot-out for the second of
two fly-half slots, with Jarrod Evans
starting and Rhys Patchell among thelikely to get the nod over Jarrod Evans
on this showing. But it was, as Gatland
admitted, a different game by then. “It
was harder for Jarrod in the first half
when we were messier,” he said.
It certainly was. Ireland were the
better team for an hour. And perhaps
Gatland had himself to blame. In clas-
sic fashion, he had lobbed a snarky gre-
nade into the Irish camp in the
build-up, suggesting Schmidt was un-
sure of his best line-up, that his players
might be “too old”, that Wales could
“derail” Ireland’s World Cup train.
His barbs would have rankled with
Schmidt but they also had the effect of
awakening Irish pride. The visitors
were sharper, snappier, Stockdale’s ex-
cellent early turnover after a tackle on
Owen Lane setting the tone.
Evans, auditioning for his role as
back-up to Dan Biggar, turned in a
mixed bag. The Blues fly-half did well
to clear his lines after collecting an Ad-
dison grubber and eluding Andrew
Conway. He also produced one peach
of a crossfield kick to Lane. But he also
missed an easy penalty when Wales
were trailing 10-3.
Ireland scored with their first at-
tempt at goal, Carty making no mistake
after Josh Navidi had strayed offside.
And although Wales drew level when
Peter O’Mahony was pinged for failing
to release, Ireland were looking far
more threatening.
Stockdale’s first try was a beauty,
Kilcoyne making the initial break, and
Carty offloading to Conway who
stepped inside a couple of tacklers be-
fore spinning the ball out to Stockdale.
Wales only had themselves to blame
for Stockdale’s second, though. Aaron
Shingler’s attempted pass out the back
of his hand landed behind all of his
team-mates. Stockdale fly-hacked the
loose ball before collecting his own
kick and touching down in the corner.
The start of the second half contin-
ued in the same vein. Wales’s replace-
ment tighthead Leon Brown lasted 10
minutes against Ireland’s replacement
loosehead Andrew Porter before he got
himself sent to the bin for persistent
scrum infringements, Romain Poite
awarding Ireland a penalty try.
It took an Owen Lane score in the
corner to awaken the crowd, before
Patchell bagged another late try.
Next weekend’s return in Dublin
will see Gatland try to turn the tables
and ruin Schmidt’s final home game in
charge. But Ireland will go into it
more confidently. “I know we cre-
ated a bit of angst for people out-
side the squad last week but I
think we restored a bit of self-
confidence here,” said Schmidt.
Scores 0-3 Carty pen; 3-3 Evans pen; 3-8 Stockdale
try; 3-10 Carty con; 3-15 Stockdale try; 3-20
pen try; 3-22 Carty con; 8-22 Lane try;
10-22 Patchell con; 15-22 Patchell try;
17-22 Patchell con.
Wales H Amos; O Lane, S Williams,
O Watkin, S Evans (J Holmes 47);
J Evans (R Patchell h-t), A Davies
(T Williams 47); R Carre (R Evans
42), R Elias (E Dee 73), S Lee
(L Brown 42), A Beard, B Davies
(J Ball 47), A Shingler, J Davies
J Navidi.
Ireland W Addison; A Conway
(G Ringrose), C Farrell, B Aki,
J Stockdale (D Kearney 42);
J Carty, K Marmion (L McGrath
60); D Kilcoyne (A Porter 45),
N Scannell (R Best 52), John Ryan
(T Furlong 52), I Henderson, James Ryan
(D Toner 52); T Beirne, P O’Mahony
(J Murphy 60), J Conan.
Referee Romain Poite (France).replacements. Patchell arrived at half-
time and made a number of bright con-
tributions, including a tackle on Chris
Farrell that forced a spill in the shadow
of Wales’ posts and a well-taken try
that gave the hosts a chance of an un-
likely comeback win.
The role of Dan Biggar’s deputy
would have been one of “probably six
positions” that were the subject of de-
bate last night, but Gatland did not sug-
gest Evans’ early exit would prove
terminal for his World Cup prospects.
“Rhys came on and did a good job,”
Gatland added. “But it’s a hell of a lot
easier coming off the bench when
there’s no pressure on you.
“It was hard for Jarrod in the first
half when the team isn’t going as well
as it could.”Upbeat: Coach Joe Schmidt
enjoyed Ireland’s victory
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