Gone But Not Forgotten (From Bucks Free Press)

Gone But Not Forgotten

3:11pm Monday 10th November 2008

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AS I mentioned in my last blog, there are players who come and go at Wasps, but leave an indelible mark on the team and teammates they played for.

Nick Adams certainly was one of those players that did, albeit making most of his mark in our club’s canteen where costs soared when he was acquired from Cornwall Pirates in 2006.

But alas, the great man has sadly gone to play for Mantabaun in France, leaving some of us with one less target for ridicule and one less good friend. It is here I take my leave and let Nicko give you a bit of insight to life after Wasps.

Bonjour from France. What a delight to have been asked to write a little report from France by my good, red faced friend, Mr Ward. Well a lot has happened in the Adams household since bidding farewell to Wasps and indeed Blighty itself!

The biggest thing was when my longsuffering better half Emma became Mrs Adams in the summer. This was an alcohol fuelled weekend of none stop happiness and laughs, helped along by enough wine for three bottles each!

After the fantastic weekend me and the missus darted off to Bognor Regis for an all inclusive at the travel inn. But in the end they turned out to be fully booked so we had to settle for a week in Barbados.

One abiding memory was getting an Aloe Vera foot massage from a Rastafarian, but there I digress.

From there it was straight to France, alone to begin with and straight into the riggers of pre season training. As a front rower I obviously took this in my stride, and was always ahead of the pack (well in the lunch queue at least). After three good pre-season games it was the start of another season again and my first experience of top 14 rugby in 43 degree heat.

The season kicked off with an away trip to Bayonne in the far South West of France. Needless to say, the 4kg in sweat lost during the game was rapidly replenished with a post match soiree.

So what of Montauban? We are a town of 60,000 Frenchies and a handful of “strangers” as we are affectionately known. The town sits about 40 kms north of Toulouse and is split by the two rivers the Tarn and the Garonne and really is a splendid little place. In terms of the team, we are in our third year in the top fourteen. Having come from arguably the best training set up in the premiership at Wasps, I was interested to see how the two training styles would compare. The lone fitness trainer here does a great job in getting the lads into fine fettle and we have two young, and extremely enthusiastic coaches who live and breathe for the cause.

One thing that has been a bit of a shock to the system is the pre match warm up. The forwards stay in the changing room for what I can only describe as a testosterone- fuelled rampage: the Romanians slapping each other in the face and screaming god knows what at each other; a huge Moroccan lock, shoulder charging the wall at full speed, which is brought to a crescendo by the pocket rocket, Bruce Willis look-a-like coach, running around slapping and pushing his charges. (its just not very British is it!). Personally, I’m from the ‘touch your toes half a dozen times and a bit of deep heat’ school of rugby, but c’est la vie, as they say in France.

As far as our season has gone we have won three from six, the Heineken cup brought with it a break from league rugby. As debutants to the cup we had the fantastic privilege of playing the champions in their brand new stadium. With this in mind the boys were more than emotional. As expected nobody gave us a hope in hell (in fact we had as good a chance as Mr ward surviving one of his wife’s chicken dinners). It was almost as if Lucifer himself had placed a wager on the men in the puke green jerseys from the south of France. We came so very close to the upset of the competition, only for Mr ‘dependable (boring)’ O’Gara to snatch the dream away. However to be clapped off the field by the Thomond Park faithful was complement indeed. Mission accomplished of getting Montauban on the map!

Well its time for me and my lovely wife to take my ‘dangerous dog’ (that’s another story) for a walk to pick up the daily baguette and settled down for dinner with a nice red in the sultry 20 degrees of late October.

Good luck to the lads.

Au revoir et a bientot The Adams family Thanks Nicko. A champion of a bloke when you were at Wasps and good luck for the rest of the season me ol chum – although you may have to start jogging down to get the daily baguette my friend as i know they can put the ‘winter coat’ on fairly rapidly if you’re not careful.

Anyway the target for my next ‘Gone but Not Forgotten’ section will be Wasps great - Sir Fraser Waters III. He’s a tough man to track down, but will be interesting to see how life in Italy is treating the popular gent.

Till next time Joe Ward