As England prepare for their first match in the Nations Championship against South Africa and The Celebrity Traitors returns to our screens, Joe Marler – recently central to both – joins us for a chat about player welfare, Stephen Fry’s slang and the importance of men looking out for each other.
How much did you plan your exit route from rugby? Did your post-rugby career just fall into place?
“I would say my post-rugby experiences have followed my rugby experiences in the sense that I winged it for 17 years and continue to wing it now. There’s a distinct lack of planning on my behalf. I’m just very fortunate that I’ve got some lovely people around me who are far more intelligent and attentive to detail, and navigate me in the right ways.”
You can’t wing being a world-class prop. You must have known you were very, very good?
“I was half decent at what I did, but I was world class at making other people bad at it. It was a combination of being too lazy to get any better and knowing my limit. A proper player, like Owen Farrell, loved the sport, did everything and it became his life. I was more interested in having fun and enjoying myself. I hit my ceiling and went: well, I’m not really gonna get much better than this. I know what I can do and what I can’t, and I just continue to wing it until people find out.”
So, you were a disrupter, stopping other people doing what they want to do?
“My ex-teammates and my employers would probably still use that word to describe me.”
You kept an unusually low profile on Celebrity Traitors and nearly won it.
“I had an advantage in that most of them didn’t know who I was, so they semi-forgot I was there, which bought me a couple of days’ grace from being killed, then I was fortunate on the days I won shields, so it all fell into place. A hybrid of being dumb and being able to play dumber than I am got me as far as it did – plus my competitive nature. I seemed to be one of the few people actually interested in trying to win, as opposed to a lot of the chin-wagging: ‘Oh, darling, do you remember that party we went to?’ Hang on, I thought we’re trying to play a bloody game here.”
It was a shame we didn’t get to see those fascinating celebrity conversations.
“Well, I think they’d be fascinating to the point of how mundane they were! There’s all these superstars and they sit down having a chat like normal friends catching up. One that I would have loved them to show was a brilliant conversation over lunch off-screen between Cat Burns and Stephen Fry about different LGBTQ slang and role-play names. I sat there being educated but trying to chip in as much as I could. Cat was saying ‘Oh, you’d be more of a dom femme.’ I’m like: ‘What’s the dom femme?’ We talked about pillow princesses, all this different language.”
You’d be a bear, wouldn’t you?
“One hundred per cent, guaranteed! I’m fully aware of how much of a bear I am, so I can throw him up, lean into my big bear fellow. But I was just thinking, wow, this is brilliant, just such a collision of different cultures and worlds. That needs to be the spin-off show: the other conversations that went on. It was great fun.”
You were extremely perceptive on Traitors, while some really academic stars couldn’t see what you did. Looking back, were there rugby teammates who wanted you or the team to fail?
“What I found would often happen was the senior players would get together, have a coffee, and if there’s stuff going on that needs addressing, we’d all be aligned. Then someone would chirp up: ‘Why don’t you go and tell the coaches that we’re training too hard?’ They knew full well I’d take that and run with it because it was in my nature to be spiky and an asshole, to be honest. So I’d go and address it with the coaches, say: ‘We all think …’ And then look around and there’d be no one else there.”
As performance director for Team England Rugby, do you talk to players about post-rugby careers, as not everyone can wing it.
“Of course. I just wish I’d had some perspective earlier on in my England career. I wouldn’t have wasted energy worrying about unnecessary things that I couldn’t control, that led to me not enjoying environments as much as I should. I was in camp the other day trying to get that message across. When you’re in it, the rugby world feels like the biggest thing in the world and all eyes are on you. Then when you’re out of it, you realise 70% of the country don’t even know what rugby is! Their first question is always: ‘Did you play rugby union or rugby league?’ I wish I’d have known that earlier, because it would’ve freed me up. Yes, you’re in a pressured environment, but you’re doing something that you love, that’s ultimately for entertainment and fun. Enjoy it.”
Most England players haven’t had more than a couple of weeks off in the last year. Where is the player welfare in the calendar?
“I feel really sorry for the new generation. In some of my seasons, I’d be playing 33-35 games, a long slog, and then at the end I’d have a tour. I’d get so excited, not just pulling on an England shirt, but going to South Africa, playing three Tests against these massive units. Yes, it was hard work but it was that traditional touring experience, spending four weeks with 30, 40 lads. It’s not that the Test matches were meaningless, but whether we won 3-0 or lost 2-1 was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It’s the life experience, seeing a new country, a different culture, an opportunity to develop younger guys in an environment that doesn’t necessarily count for anything, like a World Cup. But now they’ve brought in this Nations Championship instead.”
The idea was to turn end-of-season tours into competitive games, but now England have three games in three continents.
“I get it from a financial point of view, and trying to make the global calendar more aligned, but this team has to fly to South Africa, play a Test match at altitude, come home, spend the week in Liverpool and play Fiji at Everton, then fly over to Argentina. What?! All the best with that! It’s a work in progress, that’s the best politician’s answer I can give. Players want to play for England, to experience as much as they can. Ideally, they’re doing it with less travel and more rest. But that’s a fight between players, country and club. When you have two masters, it’s quite a battle. I’m trying my hardest for them.”
Shouldn’t players be able to say to England: ‘I have a wife and three kids so don’t want to go away for a month. Feel free to pick me in October’?
“That’s the alternative route and I actively encourage them to make those decisions. I got to that point in my career. I stood down in 2016 because I lost the plot and needed a break. And then again, in 2018, when I was fried. It takes a bit of courage to go: ‘Actually, I need to have a break.’ They worry they won’t get picked again but, if I turned to a head coach and said, ‘Mate, I’m knackered, I’m struggling. I need to stay at home, rest, recuperate and be ready to go rock October’, and he said, ‘Oh, you’re soft, I’m not having it,’ I wouldn’t want to work under him anyway. I know that’s easier said than done. That’s why they need people fighting their battles for them.”
You’re big on men’s mental health and feeling more comfortable to say what you think. Does that explain why you’re ‘giving the nod’ on Jacamo’s TV ads now?
“I’ve never been a style icon. I’m a shorts and a T-shirt man and the bigger I got, everything in your everyday high street shops was a bit of a squeeze. So the ‘Get the nod’ campaign just appealed to me, encouraging men to compliment other men. Saying ‘that’s a really nice top, mate,’ is a rarity. Blokes wonder what’s coming next. But it makes them feel good about themselves, so why don’t we do it more? It’s important.”
Your profile is way bigger now than it ever was. You can’t go to your local shops or take the dog for a walk without strangers saying ‘Morning Joe’ now. Do you like that? “If I’m on my own, I’m more than happy. I love meeting new people, hearing their stories. But it does grind me a bit when I’m with my kids. It’s not fair on them. People go: ‘Well, you sold your soul, deal with it.’ But I’m also entitled to say: ‘Piss off. Not today. I’m with my kids.’ At Camp Bestival my eldest daughter, Maggie, turned to me on the second day and just quietly, said: ‘Do you think today, maybe we could just have you, rather than you stopping every five minutes, say yes to a photo.’ She was right. I’d got caught up in it all and forgotten she’s there behind me.”
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