Chandler Cunningham-South had a rocket rise to Test match rugby last season on the back of a very strong campaign with Harlequins. The super-charged 21-year-old made his England debut in this year’s Championship win against Italy, and was part of *that* round four match against Ireland.
Unsurprisingly, the last-gasp victory against the Irish ranks as his favourite Six Nations moment, be it as a player or fan. “Winning that was pretty special,” said Cunningham-South, back at Allianz Stadium for the launch of the Gallagher Premiership. In a truly bittersweet twist, Cunningham-South was injured in the process of setting up clubmate Marcus Smith’s game-winning drop goal late in the game. “I was thinking, hopefully my calf’s not that bad!” he laughs, adding that he jumped up on his crutches celebrating at the final whistle. “It was fun, to be fair.”
For him, seeing his mum in tears of pride after watching her son play sums up why he plays the game. “That’s always special. She’s a very proud mum.”
Another young man making waves on the domestic and international scene is Exeter Chiefs and Wales second row Dafydd Jenkins. In this year’s Guinness Men’s Six Nations, at the age of just 21, Jenkins became his country’s second youngest captain of all time – after a certain Sir Gareth Edwards, and having already become the youngest captain in the Premiership in 2022 – leading an inexperienced squad depleted from post-World Cup retirements and injuries.
Despite Wales claiming the Wooden Spoon, Jenkins’s reputation was stronger than ever, pundits and fans alike recognising a great leader in the making. “Wearing the armband was a huge moment for me and my family,” he says. “To do that was an absolute honour and something I enjoyed. I probably didn’t get the success I wanted out of it, but at the moment it’s just about playing for the team and whoever has the armband.
“Driving into the stadium [in Cardiff] is always special. The fans fill out the streets and you get goosebumps.”
For Jenkins, it’s a journey that all started on the south coast of Wales. “My old man coached me in Porthcawl,” he explains. “If we lost it would always be my fault – none of the other players’, just my fault – so it pointed me in the right direction. He used to play, and he’s definitely the reason why I got into rugby. My gramps and my grandfather played too, like most people in Wales.” His earliest memories of the game are when he first started tackling. “I looked forward to that. I didn’t really like tag – I wasn’t very good at it!”
It could be said that Jenkins is still very much in the first flush of youth, especially in rugby terms, but that’s not something he wants people to focus on any more. “It’s about time we stopped talking about [Wales] just being a young group. You definitely learn through your losses, but you can also learn through your wins, and we want to start winning,” he says emphatically.
Leicester Tigers and England’s George Martin, 23, knows precisely what it is about the game that makes him tick. “When you’re under the pump together and you’re down on the scoreboard with a few minutes to go, and everyone has to pull together to make the winning try or get the penalty to win the game, they’re the moments I really enjoy,” says the second row. “One of my fondest memories of that would be playing for Tigers v Bordeaux a couple of years back. They’d won all their home games for however long, and we went there as an underdog team, a load of young lads playing. We went there and turned them over in the final few minutes. Memories like that [are my favourite], when the whole team comes together for a common goal.”
When you ask new Saracens captain Maro Itoje for his favourite Guinness Men’s Six Nations memory, he answers without hesitation, casting his mind back to 2016” “It has to be the Grand Slam. It was my first Six Nations, and everything was a bit of a whirlwind. A very amazing experience.” As a fan, however, his memories are limited. “I came into [the game] relatively late and just remember the Six Nations is what got me into rugby, watching England play specifically. I went to boarding school and the Six Nations games were always on in the common room; watching England sing the anthem and play, that was what got me excited about rugby.”
Coming from a Nigerian family also meant Itoje wasn’t steeped in rugby from a young age. “Nigerians don’t really know too much about rugby, so a lot of my family were, and probably still are, a bit confused by the game,” says Itoje. “But as I got more into it, my parents changed from being a little bit sceptical to being absolute superfans, so it’s been a great change.
“There have been several pinch-me moments throughout my career. My England debut in Rome, running onto the pitch. A sudden realisation that I’m an England player, I’ve got my little cap number, and that’s something you’ve worked towards for such a long time. That was a surreal moment.”
Sale Sharks’ Tom Roebuck grew up watching clips of Jonny Wilkinson, cherishing memories of watching England beat France in Twickenham. If there was a moment that summed up why he plays rugby, it came at that same venue – the Allianz Stadium, as we today know it – in the corner of the pitch following his team’s Gallagher Premiership final loss to Saracens in 2023.
“It was a big day for me and my family playing at Twickenham in front of sixty-five-odd thousand,” recalls the 23-year-old winger, who scored in the game. “Even though we lost, it was a great feeling just to see how proud they were of everything that happened in that game and that year. That would sum up why I started to play rugby.”
Roebuck, who won his first England cap in the summer against Japan, is at the right club for a winger seeking advice from some ex-players. “We’ve had some top-class wingers: Mark Cueto, Steve Hanley [both in the top ten of Premiership try-scorers] and Jason Robinson, so we catch up with them quite a bit,” he reveals. “Speaking to them is valuable because they’ve got insights and advice from their time that you can take into yours. At the end of the day, rugby is rugby, and as a winger you just want to score tries.” He says he would be lying if he wasn’t thinking about further England caps, possibly this year in the Autumn Nations Series in November. “I’ve made my debut now, so any opportunity I can get to play for England I’m going to relish and take it,” says Roebuck.
A favourite rugby memory for centre Cameron Redpath, of Bath Rugby and Scotland, also came at Twickenham – except he didn’t have any family or friends there to mark his debut due to the pandemic. “There was no crowd, but the support I had from back home was cool. I got a jackal turnover late in the game – I think it was the 76th minute – and it was massive just because at that point everyone just went ‘Yeaaaahhh!’ and I remember coming back off it and all the boys just jumping around because there wasn’t long left in the game, and we get the ball back,” says Redpath of the Calcutta Cup win in 2021.
The Redpath name is synonymous with Scottish rugby, but Cameron says the similarities in style between him and dad Bryan, a scrum-half, are few and far between. “He’s 5’7” and I’m 6’1”, so it’s a little bit different!”
Gloucester’s new star signing, Wales fly-half Gareth Anscombe, points to the friendship aspect of the game as the reason why he plays rugby. “Those moments in the changing rooms afterwards, those celebrations when you can have a beer with your mates after working so hard together,” he reflects. “When I’ve been out injured for periods of time, those are the moments I’ve missed the most: celebrating those wins together as a team. There’s something about the camaraderie of rugby, the brotherhood you feel with those next to you.”
That feeling would have been in ample supply back in 2019 at Principality Stadium when Wales had it all to play for in the Championship. “The Grand Slam when we beat Ireland at home was pretty spectacular. Amazing scenes, and a big win as well which was nice to cap it off. Doing the lap of the field afterwards with friends and family, no one had left the stadium even though it was bucketing down. It was a great weekend and one that I’ll never forget.”
A moment that sticks out from him from his career came on that very day in Cardiff “The way we started that game; the chip-kick to Parkesy [Hadleigh Parkes] when he scored. We’d been working on it throughout the campaign, and then identified when we could potentially pull it off that weekend with the way Ireland defend. It’s one of those moments when you’ve put six or seven weeks of hard work together for it to pay off in a big moment in a big game. It’s really important that you work at it, and if you work at it hard enough then you’re able to execute it in those pressure moments.
“Not having to think about it is really important. Working on those things allows you to be instinctive; to play fast and with a bit of freedom. I’m able to play my best when I do that.”
