By his own admission, Gavin Henson isn’t a big reader. But when he found the right book, it changed his life as he realised a chimp had been running his mind.
The former Wales and British & Irish Lions star, now 43, is 20 years removed from that night in Cardiff against England that launched him as a household name and set his country on the way to a first Grand Slam for 27 years and an era of Six Nations dominance.
So much has happened in those two decades since he picked Mathew Tait up and dumped him on his backside, before slotting the last-gasp long-range penalty that secured a first win over England at what was then the Millennium Stadium.
How to make sense of it all? Henson finally found the answer in The Chimp Paradox, the acclaimed mind management book by Professor Steve Peters, which at last allowed him to understand not only himself, but the colourful life and sporting career he has lived.
‘I couldn’t put it down and I’m not the best with books,’ Henson tells Mail Sport in an exclusive interview at his pub, the Fox, in Saint Brides Major in the Vale of Glamorgan.
‘It just grabbed me. Reading it was like a journey of self-discovery. I’d battled for a long time with the stuff that had been going on in my mind. Was that really me?
Gavin Henson, now 43, has worked out what he needed in his career – to identify the chimp
It’s 20 years since Henson announced himself with the winning kick to beat England
Henson’s famous dump tackle on Mathew Tait was one of the defining images of Wales’ first Grand Slam in 27 years
‘The book is about how you can control the chimp inside your head – the voice which tells you to do things you maybe shouldn’t. I didn’t understand the thoughts I was having after games where I wanted to go out and drink. They were a million miles away from my core values and goals in rugby.
‘Now, having read the book, I understand that for most of my rugby career, the chimp was controlling me and running my life more than I was. You need to become friends with the chimp. That makes me sound a bit crazy, doesn’t it? But we all have an inner voice.
‘If I’d found the book while I was still playing rugby, I’d 100 per cent have been a better player and maybe I wouldn’t have made the mistakes I did.’
Henson’s glittering time in rugby mixed on-field brilliance with well-publicised off-pitch errors, some of which involved alcohol.
Now, he is able to reflect on the past.
‘I needed the chimp to perform as a player,’ says Henson, now combining his pub venture by working in the health industry as a partner in U-Test diagnostics, who provide simple self-testing for health issues from vitamin level checks to bowel and prostate cancer.
‘But I didn’t know how to put the chimp back in the box when I’d finish a match. After a game, when you’re on a high, the first thing you do is go and have a drink. Drinking is hard to avoid in a rugby environment. Once I had a drink, it had quite an effect on me.
‘I wouldn’t sleep and could carry on drinking. I can handle quite a lot somehow. I could end up drinking a crazy amount and then silly things happened.
Henson tells Mail Sport how much his life has changed in the last 20 years, and especially since his professional playing career ended
Outside the Fox, which is the pub in the Vale of Glamorgan that Henson runs with his wife Katie
‘There were some moments that were not great. If I could erase them, I would. But I can’t. It never really helped me and was probably the reason why I played for quite a lot of clubs. Coaches had perceptions of me because of those stories, the way I did myself up and the media attention that followed me.
‘A lot of coaches didn’t want to go near me. But a lot of owners did. I was always caught in between.’
The irony is that he and Peters had crossed paths years before, but Henson did not open up to it at the time.
He continues: ‘What’s funny is that when I was at the Ospreys, the owners flew me in a helicopter to see a psychiatrist because they thought I wasn’t telling the truth about an injury which was one the physios didn’t know much about at the time.
‘I met Peters, but I didn’t know that then. We bounced things back and forth for two or three hours. If I’d been on my own, I’d have opened up more. I was holding back, but it was stuff I wanted to keep private.
‘After about three hours, he said: “I can’t work with this guy. His chimp is in full control”. I swear he never explained the chimp concept to me.
‘In social interactions, I probably need a drink because I’m an introvert. If I have a drink, I become more of an extrovert and the chimp has more confidence! I can be good fun on a night out! But now I choose not to go into those environments. I’m not tee-total.
‘In the last year, I’ve probably had one good drink. There’s a place in rugby for sharing a drink with your team-mates.
Henson won 33 caps for Wales across a decade in red, scoring three tries and 130 points in all
He is perhaps the most iconic member of the 2005 side that won the Six Nations Grand Slam
Henry enjoying a laugh in 2005 at Ospreys, one of 11 clubs he played for during his career
‘There’s probably three or four drinking stories from my career that didn’t turn out well. But over nearly 20 years, that’s not that many nights. The initiations were the problem. I had quite a few new clubs and at those, you’re forced to drink quite a bit.’
Henson played for 11 clubs in all, from his debut at Llanelli in 2000 to one last hurrah at his hometown side Pencoed, an Ospreys feeder club in the Welsh second division that produced fellow Lions Gareth Thomas, Scott Gibbs and Gareth Cooper, as well as current Wales flanker Tommy Reffell.
Henson was sacked by Cardiff in 2012 for drinking on a flight home from Scotland, and a year later was knocked out in a Bath pub by Carl Fearns, who had only been his team-mate for a month at the time.
‘I didn’t really know Carl,’ Henson recalls. ‘He’d missed out on the full day of drinking and I said a comment to him about that. He was like “Who the hell are you?”
‘And that was that. Good night. With Cardiff, we played a game and then went out and came in very late. We were on the bus at half four in the morning to come home. Some of us went straight on to the bus, obviously still drunk, and I made a terrible decision to carry on drinking. It wasn’t great and they sacked me.
‘It was tough, but more so for my family and friends.’
Henson’s inner chimp gave rise to his nickname of ‘Super Gav’. It was ‘Super Gav’ who played the game of his life to beat England in Cardiff and who went on to earn Lions selection for the ill-fated tour of New Zealand, which ended in a 3-0 whitewash defeat by the All Blacks.
It was ‘Super Gav’ who took to the field with shaved legs, silver boots, fake tan and slicked-back hair. And it was ‘Super Gav’ who when making a live podcast appearance in front of a sold-out audience in February, wore one of his old Wales shirts to boost his confidence. Old habits die hard.
Carl Fearns (second right) knocks out Henson in a bar fight just a month after they became team-mates at Bath
Henson joined Toulon in 2011 on a five-month contract, playing alongside Jonny Wilkinson
Henson battling Tana Umaga on 2005 Lions tour which ended in a 3-0 All Blacks clean sweep
‘I’ve always wanted to look the part. I saw rugby as like putting on an outfit,’ says Henson, who still looks like he hasn’t aged a day from his playing days.
‘It’s a case of look good, feel good. I took confidence from how I looked. I was like that at school and I’m still like it now. I can’t play for Pencoed today without shaving my legs and my hair being done. It’s just the way I am. Maybe it’s back to the chimp. The chimp wants to look like that and that’s just the way it is!’
Henson transcended the sport in his heyday, flitting between the front and the back pages but always a vibrant character who raised rugby’s profile.
These days, he lives a very different life, running the Fox with his wife, Katie. The business is successful at a time of difficulty for the hospitality industry, and the couple have two children – Bale and Chase – and live in the village in which Henson grew up. Rugby remains a passion.
‘I was quite high profile, pretty much from the day I came on the scene in Wales. That grew after 2005 and the game with England,’ Henson says. ‘I always wanted to help grow rugby. I love the sport. I wanted it to be as big as football. I tried to fly the flag, but rugby wasn’t ready for that when I was playing.
‘That made it tough for me. Maybe I didn’t come across well. You see the same issue now with someone like Henry Pollock. He’s one putting his head above the parapet which I think is great. Rugby needs that. It’s falling behind a bit. The more characters coming through, the better but to me it looks like the game’s trying to stop that a little bit.
‘At some point, rugby needs to change and move forward. Rugby is built on fear. It’s very male dominant. Luckily, in my career, I had a few television opportunities – 71 Degrees North, Strictly Come Dancing and The Bachelor. They made me feel amazing.
‘It was a million miles away from what a rugby environment is. The TV companies treated me so nicely and made me realise there is more to life.’
Appearing on The Bachelor, a Channel 5 series that pitted 25 women against each other to win Henson’s heart, in 2011
Henson also competed in series eight of Strictly Come Dancing, making it to the semi-final
Henson at the bar in his new venture, The Fox, in St Brides Major in the Vale of Glamorgan
Henson won 33 caps for Wales, and one for the Lions in New Zealand in 2005. He never played at a World Cup, but he is happy with his lot and more content now than ever.
His work with U-Test is in-part motivated by the loss of a close friend to serious illness. The company launched in January and is already booming, with Henson now busy in two very different businesses.
‘I think we would kill for a player like me coming through in Wales now,’ Henson adds. ‘That’s why I haven’t gone into coaching – because I’m not impressed yet by the players. I still feel like I can go out there and do a better job and I don’t want to have to pick myself!
‘I do still love the game. With Pencoed, there are no touch judges, so it all goes on. It’s old school, but I like that. I got punched in one game, the player got sent off. But I’ve always been targeted, even when I was at the top level, so I don’t mind that.
‘It’s still barbaric out there. That adrenaline comes back and I love it. It makes you feel like a man. I now play with guys who are as young as 18. Some of them weren’t born when I did that kick against England in 2005!
‘I’ve played a few times when I’ve tried to control the chimp. But when it’s just me, it doesn’t feel right. To get in the zone, I always click my fingers before I go out. I always did it for Wales too. I was very relaxed before a game. But when I went out to play, I’d click my fingers and say to myself “I’m prepared to die here”.
‘That again sounds a bit crazy, but I’d genuinely feel like that. It would get my adrenaline going. It takes a certain type of person to play rugby. It’s not for everyone. But I love the physical side of it. Rugby players are just built different. It’s strange.’
Henson played with incoming Wales head coach Steve Tandy for six years at Ospreys and hopes his former team-mate can bring the good times back to a struggling rugby nation that has only just escaped the shadow of an 18-Test losing streak.
Henson hopes the good times are on their way back for Wales after two years of struggles
After everything Henson has been through, he is happy with his lot and more content than ever
He much prefers the quiet life with Katie and his two boys, running the Fox
‘It was interesting for me to see Steve become a coach. I probably didn’t expect that of him,’ Henson says. ‘But from what I’ve seen and what he’s done, he does look like the real deal. It’s tough times for Welsh rugby. Luckily, we got a win in Japan, so Steve can start on a clean slate and a losing run isn’t hanging over him. He’s got his work cut out.
‘The bigger thing is can we sort out the regions? Do we go down to two? Do we go back to clubs? I’d love Wales to create two super clubs.
‘Hopefully, Steve can bring exciting rugby back. In Wales, we’re not the biggest so we need to be a bit cleverer. I think we were fun to watch in 2005 when we won the Grand Slam. Hopefully, we can get back to that and shock a few people but it’s whether we’ve got the players to do it or not. I don’t know if we do.
‘I’d still love to be coming through as a rugby player now. I think the environment would be much better suited for me. I think Wales needs a player like me now, but that’s my opinion.
‘At the same time, I much prefer this quiet life now with Katie and the boys. I’m so lucky. Who’d have thought it? Me. Running a pub!’
Gavin Henson is a co-owner of U-Test Diagnostics, a revolutionary health company supplying the best rapid home testing kits on the market and available in Home Bargains. For more information go to https://u-test.co.uk/.
