Fresh from England’s World Cup campaign, centre Dan Hipkiss is now back in the Tigers’ midfield and gunning for glory on three fronts. He talks exclusively to www.rucked.com
Nice to be back in club rugby?
It is good actually, I really enjoyed being with England during the summer but playing at Welford Road again was great. The atmosphere is always amazing, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up even when I went out for the warm-up last weekend. It’s nice to be back playing with my mates, too.
Much post-World Cup talk flying around?
There is a bit, but that’s to be expected, especially as I’m in the changing room with the younger lads. They’ve been saying that maybe now’s the time I should move to the other changing room.
The ‘other’ changing room?
Yeah, we’ve got two changing rooms – one for the younger guys, one for the older guys. The younger guys congregate in one and as you stay for longer at the club, a discussion goes on about when you should move up. Jim Hamilton, Luke Abraham and Brett Deacon decide who moves up and there’s a bit of voting involved too. I don’t want to leave though, it’s more fun in our changing room, the older guys just talk about cars and money all the time.
How do you assess your World Cup?
It was a good time and it showed me a different side to rugby – playing big game after big game at the most incredible venues. With all the media interest and pressure, I got to experience things that I’ll probably never experience again. But it’s all over now and so there’s not much use harping on about it, I just hope I can use that experience to help this Tigers.
Were you happy with the amount of game time you got?
It’s difficult because you always reassess your chances as you go on. When you get into the 47-man squad, you want to be in the 30, when you get on the bench you want to be starting – your aims shift all the time. It was great to be involved in the final and be in the 22, there were eight guys really disappointed not to be in the squad so I’m not going to feel sorry for myself because of the amount of game time I got.
Does all of the recent furore involving Catt, Dallaglio and Ashton tarnish the squad’s achievements at all?
I don’t think it does – it’s separate from what happened during the World Cup. People are entitled to their views but you’ve got to judge it on how we performed and the fact that we got to the final and narrowly missed out.
Marcelo Loffreda is taking over soon…
If you look at his record and how he took a side to a World Cup semi-final and third place, he’s obviously talented. I’ve met him a couple of times, but only to say ‘hi’. To be honest, I don’t want to know what people think of him, I want to make up my own mind.
And Aaron Mauger’s on his way too…
It’s obviously disappointing to have lost Daryl [Gibson, to Glasgow Warriors] but it’s good to have a current All Black in the side. Hopefully he can use the experience he had in New Zealand to help us – it’s important to have guys like that around.
The Leicester backline is a tough place to be these days...
Yes, but there should be competition at clubs such as Leicester, it’s a bad day for us when we don’t have competition for places. We’ve also got the likes of Tom and Ben Youngs coming through so we can’t rest on our laurels, we have to play well to keep our place.
Does the Heineken Cup bring a lot of pressure?
I think it has had an important part to play with Leicester over the last few years – supporters see it as a really big competition and so do we. That’s not to discredit the other competitions because we want to win all three. But you can see that the build up is different, there’s more interest and it is the ultimate test. The pool stages are going to be really tough and can’t be taken lightly – they’re all big games.
And with Leinster you’re up against one of the best midfield combinations around – O’Driscoll and D’Arcy…
They’ve been the most consistent performers in the northern hemisphere for a good while and it’s going to be a big test. I’d say O’Driscoll is up there with the best of them and Gordon D’Arcy is very strong too. While they can do outstanding things, they both do the not–so-flash work as well – they ruck and compete, which makes them much tougher opponents.
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