SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

Max Evans interview: The Max factor



By RICHARD BATH
MAX EVANS has probably never heard of John Lambie, the legendary gaffer who stacked his unfashionable Partick Thistle teams with borderline sociopaths and stormed the top flight of Scottish football.
Nor would the suave former public schoolboy have much in common with the "crabbit, crabbit" man whose pronouncements were delivered amid a hail of profanities, whose idea of a good day was one spent with his doos or his bookie, whose nights were passADVERTISEMENTed chewing the cud at the Whitburn social club with his old pals while shipping a skinful.

Yet Evans and Lambie have more in common than having plied their trade at Firhill. Both men instinctively understand the power of the mind. Lambie was famously an adherent to the teachings of American self-help guru Joyce Meyer, who made her name on cable TV programme Godslot, while another secret of his success was drafting in "the wee minister", club chaplain Mark Fleming, to look after the mental wellbeing of his players. Partick's finest could confide their troubles in the preacher, and in turn he would work on their self-esteem, rebuild their confidence.

Not that Evans is short of confidence after a string of man-of-the-match performances that culminated in a match-winning display of staggering intensity as Glasgow beat Toulouse 33-26 at Stade Ernest Wallon in possibly the biggest upset in Heineken Cup history, a feat the Glasgow flier describes as "the sort of weekend you dream about as a kid". He does, however, have a boundless fascination with the mental side of the game.

That's why he says he knew Glasgow could do something special in France even before the players stepped out on the pitch. "There was the long journey down there, and you could feel people become more thoughtful, there was a definite sense that there was a real focus on the job in hand," says Evans of the trip to Toulouse. "In the dressing room before the game I could feel the guys were all up for it, and when Justin Va'a put in a huge hit in the first seconds I sort of felt that it was going to be a special day.

"We won that game with our defence, because we made all our tackles. That's all about desire and commitment, and it was really there that day. But it was also about a fear of failure. That fear factor is there when you play the really good sides, like when we were the first side to play at the new Thomond Park, or when we played Bath or took on Cardiff. That's when you know that if you don't turn up you could be pumped, humiliated in front of all those people. But it was also about a bit of anger: we feel we're not taken seriously enough by the big clubs and we wanted to make them respect us. We have that same intensity when we're at home because this place is our fortress, which makes being beaten at home unthinkable. How we play is so dependent on our mental state."

This afternoon, though, the power of positive thought won't be employed to lay low the aristocrats of the European game, but simply to ensure that Glasgow dispatch a limited Dragons side which has developed a worrying habit of beating Sean Lineen's men. If rising to the challenge has become a strong suit for a Warriors side which was recently in an unprecedented second place in the Magners League, so has losing matches they should win comfortably.

"We tend to come unstuck when we play sides we think we ought to beat," says Evans. "Although it's something we're trying to address, sometimes we lack urgency and if we start badly in those circumstances we find it difficult to snap out of it. Against Connacht earlier in the season we started badly and never got any better; we got frustrated and allowed them to dictate to us. Against the Dragons two weeks ago, we threw an interception pass and played in a way that points to a lack of confidence and mental composure."

A lack of composure or confidence are sins that Evans could never be accused of. He says that his willingness to have a go and his almost supernatural confidence stem from a school career in which he only lost two matches in five years, and from the knowledge that virtually all of Glasgow's set moves are designed to work him into space so that he can utilise his pace and elusive running skills. But he also points out that he has worked hard to free himself of the mental inconsistency that seems to afflict the Warriors.

"The mental side to sport at this level is absolutely crucial," says Evans, who gave up a career as a PGA Tour golf professional to pursue his dream of playing rugby professionally. "When I was at Harlequins we had a psychologist who was there if guys needed someone to talk to, or if they were a bit down. But I also had the techniques I'd imported from golf, where even college players have access to psychologists and mind coaches. I use the same technique as Tiger Woods, where I give myself a timeframe to think about it – usually I'll take 10 paces to swear and rant – before I move on and it's over.

"Golf teaches you mental toughness because if you play badly you're letting yourself down, whereas in rugby you're letting your teammates down even if it's not immediately obvious because players can hide in rugby in a way they can't in golf. That's why a lot of our guys can put losses behind them in a way that I can't. After my first game against Edinburgh I played so badly that afterwards I wrote down the five things that disappointed me. Only after I'd done that could I move on."

If all of that makes Evans sound terrifyingly introspective, then he's not. He does, however, bring a golfer's analytical, single-minded focus to the task of winning with Glasgow and working his way into a regular berth in the Scotland team after making his debut as a replacement against Canada. The speedy outside centre with the distribution skills of a former scrum-half has certainly proved he can make the step up, scoring two tries against Ireland A as a replacement last year and then adding another against Georgia in a match where he was conspicuously the most incisive back on display.

The 25-year-old is clearly thinking long term, having just signed a deal with Glasgow which takes him through to 2011 and the World Cup. He makes no secret of the fact that his intention to stay until then is motivated in part by a determination to force his way into the World Cup squad. It's a huge boost for Glasgow, not least because it means that his brother Thom, from whom Max remains inseparable, will almost certainly also remain at Firhill, dampening the prospect of a Lamont-style double departure.

"Thom and I used to batter the crap out of each other and fight over girls, but these days we get on really well and are very close," he says. "We live together, eat together, go to the cinema together and drive to training together. I'm the more shy and retiring one, and while he's got the voice I've got the dance moves, but basically we're very alike and have the same interests. We're still very competitive but we just channel it better these days, so that we compete in training or to see who's the fastest."

They've also begun to form a pretty decent partnership around the pivotal figure of outside centre Max, who has become adept at supplying the try-scoring pass to his younger brother. Their combination of speed and incision is a potent weapon, one that Max desperately hopes will be rekindled at international level, although he knows it will be hard to dislodge his old friend and sevens teammate Ben Cairns.

For the moment, though, Evans is reluctant to look too far ahead. That's the golf mental training kicking in again: look only at your next obstacle, which in this case is today's Heineken Cup opponents, the Newport-Gwent Dragons, an otherwise mediocre side who have become something of a bogey team for Glasgow. Not only did they end the Warriors' year-long unbeaten home record last year, but they also beat Glasgow at Firhill in the Magners League this year. This is exactly the sort of side that Lineen's men are making a habit of losing to.

"What I learnt from golf is that we have to put last week behind us," says Evans. "Sure it was great, yes we made history, yes I enjoyed every minute of it, but if we lose this one we will have tarnished everything we worked so hard to achieve against Toulouse. We may have had nothing to lose in France, but that's exactly why this sort of game is so much more important. This is our bread and butter. If we can't consistently win this sort of game then we'll never get anywhere."

That would never suit Evans. The boy, quite clearly, is going places.


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This article was posted on 25-Jan-2009, 08:41 by Hugh Barrow.