Finally got around to reading 'My Grand Slam Year', written by the BBC's Graham Thomas under the pseudonym Gavin Henson. I really like Henson's style of play and obvious star quality. I will never forget watching him striding up the Millenium Stadium pitch with Mathew Tait, England's new 'wunderkid' under his arm as Wales won 11-9.
I expected a controversial book after the furore when it was published. It turned out to be very tame stuff indeed. In the most talked about paragraph, it seems that Gavin reckoned Brian O'Driscoll had pulled his hair and tried to gouge his eyes before asked him "How do you like that, you cocky little fu**er". And in another game Brian had called Gavin "a fu**ing w***er" after some incident. I can see that there is an absense of politeness in this approach, but you'll hear worse any night you drive down St Mary's St. with your car window open.
But Gavin does launch into Lions Coach, Clive Woodward and Tour Spin Doctor, Alistair Campbell - justifiably so in my opinion. There was only one funny line in the entire book. 'Alfie' took over as captain after the All Blacks deliberately maimed O'Driscoll in the 1st test - and his first team talk (before the 2nd test) amounted to "I've only got two words to say to you. Don't fu**ing panic".
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