in sports psychology, with a view to
working at an executive level in a
sports organisation. On the media
front, a second Premiership club has
expressed an interest if he plans to
make another series of Prep To Win. In
the more immediate term, Obano’s
priority will be his rugby and a bid to
force himself into England’s World
Cup plans. He was tracking well last
summer, when he was a member of
the leadership group for England’s Test
wins against the United States and
Canada. “I knew I could do it but I
didn’t know Eddie knew,” Obano says.
Now he does and England’s third
loose-head berth, behind Genge and
Joe Marler, is up for grabs. If Obano
could nail that spot and play at a
World Cup after all he has been
through it would be some story. If only
he knew someone qualified to tell it.
Prep To Win: Harlequins is available on
Prime Video.or through film. “I have not made
music since I was 17. That is a smart
connection, not one I would never
have made. But I struggle to see it
because I am just so much more
eloquent now,” he says.
“It is something I think about. I live
by myself so I go into these
metaphysical thoughts about your
existence. You start thinking about
your personality, thinking about how
you are. It helps give you a greater
understanding. The content I consume
is educational only. I watch something
and then start to think how it applies
to me, how it is interesting, what you
can learn from it. Then I spiral into
these thoughts. That is how I operate.”
Obano’s future career prospects are
multitudinous. “I am actually not an
idiot,” he felt compelled to point out
during a recent podcast. “I laugh a lot
so people have this perception of you.”
He is studying for a master’s degreeearly-onset dementia. “It is the reality
of it,” he says. “As long as we weren’t
manufacturing anything, if it was real
then we had to run with it.”
But there was no preaching;
another of Obano’s editorial
standpoints. He is only interested in
consuming educational content, so
that is what he wants to produce.
“I love watching Explained on
Netflix. I love the way they give you
the information. That is all they are
doing. They are not telling you what
to do with it. There are certain
documentaries that do that,” he says.
“There was a vegan one on Netflix
[The Game Changers] that guide you
down the idea that veganism is right. I
think it is idiots who enjoy that kind
of thing. How am I supposed to know
you are telling me the truth? Just
because you are on television?”
Obano clearly has a passion for
storytelling, whether through rhymeObano has overcome injury, below, to become one of England’s best loose-head props with Bath but his talents do not lie14 1GS K1 Saturday April 30 2022 | the timesSport Gallagher Premiership
Film-maker Obano on a journey
B
eno Obano: Bath and
England prop, musician,
producer, director, master’s
student; here is a man with
a hinterland. First and
foremost, Obano still considers
himself a rugby player. The 27-year-
old is close to a return after dealing
with the second serious knee injury of
his career and he is hungry to
represent England at the World Cup
next year, having been capped in the
2021 Six Nations. “I need to get back
home, on to the pitch,” he says.
Off the field, Obano is intent on
telling stories and showcasing
characters. On Tuesday night he was
at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, a few
miles down the road from where he
grew up, for the premier of Prep To
Win: Harlequins, his new
documentary, which follows the
Gallagher Premiership champions
through pre-season.
Obano is happy to remain behind
the camera, having taught himself
how to make television programmes
through the the internet.
“The first
thing I looked
up was, ‘How do
you know when
to play music
underneath
people talking?’ ”
he says. But to
turn the lens on
Obano for a few
minutes is to
showcase a man
on his own
journey of
discovery; a tale
worthy of its own
documentary.
A quick recap:
Obano was born
in Peckham and educated at the
London Oratory School, before being
offered a scholarship to Dulwich
College. After being released by the
Wasps academy, he borrowed money
from a friend so he could pay for an
MRI scan and an injection on a back
injury, allowing him to get through
pre-season with Bath in 2014.
It took four years to pay back the
money but Obano saw it as an
investment in his career. He was
overweight, broke but not prepared to
give up on rugby. He did not want to
be that guy telling stories about
nearly making it and of being Maro
Itoje’s cousin (born three days apart).
Bath took him on and Obano, who
is 5ft 8in and 19 stone, has made his
own name by developing into one of
England’s premier loose-head props;
rated by Eddie Jones for his rugby
and his personality. A savage knee
injury suffered on England duty in
2018 threatened to end his career. He
fought back through some dark times
— for the first six weeks he slept on a
mattress on the floor, urinating into a
can and using wet wipes to wash — to
make a belated Test debut.
By way of an initiation in 2018,
Jones, the England coach, had made
Obano rap for the squad. That had
been his art form as a teenager and
he performed a few bars he wrote
when he was 16. A decade later,
Obano has left behind his ownrhymes but music remains an
important element of his film-making.
His first documentary, Everybody’s
Game, was released in September
2020, a film that examined race and
diversity within rugby, for which he
interviewed players including Ellis
Genge and Anthony Watson. Obano’s
intention was to spread the gospel, to
highlight how more people could
benefit from what rugby has to offer if
the sport could break through into
new communities. “You can only have
an opportunity if you know about the
opportunity,” he said at the time.
On the back of that film, released
eight months after George Floyd was
killed in the United States, Obano
was contacted by Marlborough
College, who were inspired to create a
new sixth-form rugby bursary. Obano
and Watson help to select the pupil.
“We got a lot of nice messages, a lot
of people saying, ‘This is what it did
for my family,’ but this was something
tangible,” Obano says. “I just thought,
‘This is changing people’s lives.’ It
made me happy. We look for someone
who loves rugby but who is a good
person, a kid who wants to do better
and wouldn’t otherwise have the
means. It is hard when you are 16
because there are so many different
influences. This is now an
opportunity for them.”
Watson and the Marlborough
College pupil were both at the Ritzy
on Tuesday night. Obano’s inspiration
for Prep To Win: Harlequins can be
traced back
through the
popularity of the
All Or Nothing
franchise of
sports
documentaries,
which began in
the NFL, and
Formula One’s
Drive To Survive,
to ESPN’s 30 for
30. Pitching a
club rugby
documentary
was not easy
because it is
small fry
compared with the Premier League or
F1 but Obano cited a lacrosse film
that engaged him because of the story
and the characters, even though he
knew nothing of the sport.
The original plan was to build a
league-wide series but the amount of
“filibustering” he experienced from
Gallagher Premiership clubs
reinforced how much harder the
sport needs to work to sell itself.
Harlequins, though, were keen to be
involved. Obano conducted all of the
interviews, his disarming manner
helping Marcus Smith, James
Chisholm and others feel at ease.
Smith talks in the documentary about
honing his kicking technique and his
mentality with Jonny Wilkinson.
“Being able to chat to your mate
made it a lot easier. I felt able to open
up and be myself,” Smith says.
“Hopefully this [documentary] is the
start of something in rugby. We feel
we sometimes get put on the back-
burner with other sports getting loads
of coverage. We feel proud about our
game and we can really grow it, not
just here in England but across the
world and that will benefit all clubs.”
It is not a puff piece. Obano and his
team had a long editorial discussion
about whether to include some of the
hard-hitting comments on injury,
concussion and dementia. David
Flatman, the former Bath prop turned
broadcaster, talks openly about his
peers now being diagnosed withThe Bath prop tells
Alex Lowe how being
behind the camera for
a new series can help
to raise rugby’s profile
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