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Some players are comfortable blowing their own trumpet. Not Will Stuart, even after a memorable year lifting multiple trophies with the British & Irish Lions and Bath. Ask the self-effacing prop whether he might have earned himself a few more media and commercial opportunities and he genuinely looks horrified. “It’s not really for me,” he murmurs. “I struggle with it in general. Maybe it’s a mental block.”
Welcome to the endearingly quirky world of England’s most left-field squad member. Did you know that Stuart’s paternal grandfather – also the son of the Bishop of Uganda – used to play No 8 in the same rugby team as Idi Amin, who featured as a lock? Or that his maternal great-grandfather was shot down in 1918 by the Red Baron before going on to act in, among other films, the Lavender Hill Mob?
Then there is the incongruous fact that, as a kid, England’s 50-cap front-row hulk played the flute. “It was bullied out of me when I was 13. I wish I’d kept it on.” And all this before we both shift our gaze down past his meaty thighs to the eclectic range of tattoos on his left foot. Among the designs is a small cartoon lion and an image of his big-haired teammate Alfie Barbeary, reminders of his summer exploits in Australia and Bath’s Premiership title success. Barbeary is apparently thrilled. “The Lions put a picture of it on their social media page so Alfie’s claiming that, by extension, that means he’s been on a Lions tour.”
The next entertaining topic – do keep up – is of how close he came to losing the Lions the Test series. At a pivotal late juncture in the second Test in Melbourne, with a big scrum looming, the footplate of his left boot disintegrated with no spare immediately available. Having previously boasted about wearing the same pair of cheap, old faithfuls all season, his professional life briefly flashed in front of him.
Ahead of the biggest scrum of his career, the tighthead’s only option was to ask Tadhg Furlong to lend him one of his. “It was my inside stud on my inside foot which is kind of my most important one. The boots had done 38 games by that point and every scrum training session as well. I was slightly nervy for 10 seconds.” It did not help that Furlong’s size 10 boots were two sizes too small. “My foot was king-prawned in there. Mizuno now send me boots probably because my agent couldn’t believe I’d bought my original pair off the shelf from a sports shop in town.”
All’s well that ends well. But, hang on, let’s briefly rewind. Given the 29-year-old Stuart also played in the final Test in Sydney that means he featured in 39 games last season. In theory, elite players are meant to feature in no more than 30.
How fresh is Stuart feeling now, then, ahead of Bath’s derby with Bristol at the Recreation Ground and an onrushing reunion with a motivated Australian scrum on Saturday? In response, he offers up another telling little anecdote. “I managed to injure myself during the off season which was fairly embarrassing. I did it lifting a very small amount of weight above my head in Trowbridge Pure Gym. I got a back spasm and slightly slipped a disc. It’s usually the way. The body holds on for a whole season, then you relax for two weeks and something happens.”
You will have to wait a long time, however, before the big man complains too loudly about anything. If the laid-back Finn Russell was ever reincarnated as a tight head then the player he would most closely resemble would be his affable English mate. Recently a former England age-group colleague, Gloucester’s Ollie Thorley, jokingly told Stuart his U20 teammates would not have backed him to become an all-conquering Test Lion. “I think they thought I’d probably crash and burn aged 20,” says Stuart. “But I was never laid back in terms of training or the gym. It was probably just the perception that I didn’t take anything else too seriously at all.”
What relatively few people understood was that deep down he did want it. Tony Jackson, his coach at Radley College, had told him at 16 that if he switched to prop he could prosper. “He told me, ‘You can be a Nat One-level back rower or potentially an international-level tight head’.” It encouraged him to aim that bit higher. “It’s hard to explain but I’m low-key competitive. I want to play in the biggest games against the best people. That’s always been my driver. It’s quite a rewarding thing to try to be at the top of something. And I’m not sure there’s anything else in life I’d be at the top of.”
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It has not always been an easy road: from “getting pasted every week” on loan at Blackheath to an unfulfilling period as a young squad hopeful at Wasps. Finally he has found inner satisfaction with Bath and England. “For me it’s been about finding the middle ground. I’ve gone through periods of trying to be as laid back as possible which got me to a certain point. Then I went down a more intense route and found I didn’t enjoy my rugby as much. For me the last year has been the most I’ve enjoyed rugby.”
Off the field, he has popped the question to his now-fiancee, Nancy. A case of crouch, touch, engaged? “We met in Oxford when I’d just turned 20 so there’s been a nine-year pause.” The only slight issue has been the facility with which he loses and gains weight. “It was an off season of getting scowled at because I lost 5-6kg just as she was starting a ‘wed shred’ to lose a couple of pounds before the wedding. Er, not that she needs to – can I put that on the record?”
For now, though, Stuart’s 135kg presence is required elsewhere. Three years ago, he scored two tries off the bench to secure a Twickenham draw against the All Blacks while his record against southern hemisphere opposition in general remains an enviable one. And if he trots out looking rather more relaxed than angry, don’t be fooled. “Anger is not a massive driver. The few times I’ve been really angry in my life I’m usually quite hard to roll back from that level. It’s not an emotion I’m very good at handling.” All hail England’s strong man but he’d rather you didn’t sing his praises too loudly.
