He puts in two pairs of boots, a gumshield, recovery skins, a long- and a short-sleeved training top and a set of long studs. He checks the contents, then takes them out again, laying them on his bed. Pausing a moment, he puts them all back into the bag. Then he empties them onto the bed again. George repeats this process five times before finally closing the bag, shouldering it and leaving the room. He’s already written down his objectives for the match ahead on a piece of hotel notepaper. Having memorised this list of tactics and prompt words, he’s ripped it up and thrown it in the bin. Before he did that, George phoned Andy McCann, a former Scottish karate international and stroke survivor who now works as a sports psychologist. Andy spoke with George about the match, but also about life outside rugby, about the flat George hoped to buy in Cardiff. With less than two hours to kick-off, just hearing Andy’s voice is more important to George than anything he has to say about the game itself.
