Gloucester and England Saxons centre Anthony Allen is at the forefront of his club’s charge for silverware once again. He spoke to www.rucked.com
How’s things?
Good thanks, just finished training for the day.
Off to do anything exciting?
Got to go to B&Q to buy some tiles for my bathroom. Exciting stuff eh? Sorry to be a bit disappointing…
Not at all, is it just a one-off DIY project or part of a grander scheme?
I’ve just done one bathrooms, so I’ve got to the second. I’ve gone for some slate tiles on the floor and some nice tiles around the walls.
Sounds lovely. Big DIY fan then?
I enjoy doing it, when you’re finished you get a good deal of satisfaction from the fact that it looks how you want it to.
So you’re doing the whole place up then?
Yeah, I think I’ll do this one up [that I’m living in], then I might sell it up and buy another.
A future career in property developing beckons?
Possibly, my brother’s into property developing more than me – I go and see his projects and get inspired.
Onto the rugby, how’s life at Gloucester?
It’s a good atmosphere at the moment. We’ve got a good of bunch of guys and it’s really good fun at training. If you do things week-in, week-out it can become a bit of new tedious chore if you’re doing the same old stuff, but they’ve been putting new ideas into training so it’s all a bit different.
Does it help having so many players your own age in the side?
I think so, and obviously we’re such a young squad, especially in the backline. We’re with each other all day, most weeks and then play at weekends together, so it helps a lot that we get on. We’ve also been playing together for a while – what with young England teams and all that – so we’ve actually known each other a long time. We’re all good mates off the pitch – only the other night we had a card night.
Who won?
Ryan Lamb. I came second, which was a bit annoying.
Losing to Leicester last week must have been a blow?
No team likes losing but we played how we wanted to play and the game can’t always go the way you want it to. We’re happy with how we played apart from the result – we played a good tempo but made little mistakes, we’ve just got to bounce back this week.
Does last year’s defeat to them still rankle?
What happened at the end of last season is gone and it’s irrelevant now. We’re a bigger and better team now than we were then, we’ve winning games in the Heineken Cup and that shows we’ve come on, developed and evolved as a side.
What do you think the difference is?
Obviously there’s been a few signings but ultimately I think the core of the team that played last year is still here. We’re learning from the defeats last year and we don’t want to repeat them – they hurt. We’re learning new things and we can’t forget that we didn’t get to the final last year by chance, we played well last season, it just fell apart in the last game. I think we’ve got better strength in depth this year though.
Which signing has impressed you most?
Obviously Les (Vainikolo) has made a big impression and now he’s got a cap and all sorts. Just his presence on the pitch opens up space for others.
And England, what’s your take on that?
Being in the Saxons was good fun, I enjoyed that. But of course I didn’t get picked [for the Six Nations] so that was a bit disappointing. But Brian’s got his opinion on me and he knows what he wants. I’ve just got to get on with things and play well for Gloucester. Maybe if there’s a few injuries I’ll get a chance…
Do you know what it is about your game he doesn’t like?
No, he hasn’t really spoken to me about it.
What do you think you need to work on?
Everything, it’s just about working on everything. I’m doing it a bit more attack-minded kicking – little grubbers, that kind of thing.
Is it harder because you’ve had a taste of England action?
You do miss it and it makes you more determined to try and prove the head coach wrong. You do try and put into the games you play what you think the coach wants. You want to make him doubt he’s picked the right player…
So, what’s next for you then?
After the bathroom? The kitchen probably.
Sounds fun, thanks Anthony.