SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

Published Date: 09 August 2009
By Martin Hannan
YOU CAN imagine the scene. A Scottish rugby internationalist playing for Sale Sharks in Greater Manchester after three years in Glasgow is offered a move to one of France's top clubs for considerably more money.
The expression "bite off his hand" would normally apply, but former Hawks and Warriors player Rory Lamont is not like that. The Perthshire-born 26-year-old is sincere when he informs you "money isn't everything" and you can tell he genuinely weighed up a lot of factors before deciding to move to RC Toulon.

The weather, for instance: "It's a bad day today – there's a bit of cloud and it's only 28 degrees...

"I've been here for nine weeks now and there have been three cloudy days. It makes a nice change from Glasgow and Manchester, which I believe are the two wettest cities in the UK.

"The money is talked about a lot, and I am not going to deny that the money is better in France than it was in England, but the money isn't everything.

"You come out here to embrace a new culture and learn a new language. I'm living in the South of France on the Côte d'Azur with the sea on one side and the mountains on the other and forests and lakes all around – the place is just stunning.

"There's a different feel to life as well, everything's so laid back and the pace of life is a bit slower, all quite different from the rat race back home. Out here they really live for the moment and enjoy life, and still take their siestas in the afternoon.

"It was just a great opportunity and I just thought where else am I going to be able to go and enjoy a different life while playing my rugby?

"In Scotland my whole life revolved around rugby and if I wasn't getting selected for the national side I would be really miserable.

"In my two years in Manchester I came to realise that rugby isn't everything in life. Yes, give 100 per cent when you are training and playing, but learn to embrace other interests.

"I have signed here for three years and there is a strong possibility that in three years I will be ready to move onwards, perhaps back to elsewhere in the UK or even Japan, and gain more experiences.

"I love rugby but I don't treat it as the be-all-and-end-all. I'll try to make sure that I experience as much as I can in my life while still enjoying my rugby."

In the meantime, having been joined by girlfriend Julia last week, Lamont is househunting: "Toulon own quite a few apartments in the one block and there's about ten of us here. What normally happens is that new players will move in here for about two or three months until they get settled, so I'm just about to start looking for a place of my own. I'm looking to get somewhere with a bit of a view and a garden, somewhere I can relax a little bit more."

Lamont has had a hectic time in the past few weeks, adjusting to his new life in a club which is determined to gain success. Club President, multi-millionaire publisher Mourad Boudjella, is spending money like water in doing so – World Cup winner Jonny Wilkinson is another new signing from Newcastle Falcons, along with clubmate Tom May, while Jamie Robinson of Wales and Felipe Contepomi and Juan Martin Lobbé of Argentina are also now at Toulon.

Capped 19 times for Scotland, mostly on the wing, Lamont is determined to make the Toulon full-back jersey his own. The new Top 14 campaign in France kicks off on Friday when Toulon host Stade Francais at the Stade Mayol, and Lamont has already shown in pre-season friendlies – the match against Brive was anything but a friendly with plenty fights – that he is more than capable of staying at No.15 for the season, barring injury.

He is also self-critical, admitting he underperformed in the 20-6 victory over touring Australian side ACT Brumbies on Thursday night: "It was a good victory but pretty disappointing for me. I played against Racing Metro and Brive in the previous games and was really happy but against the Brumbies everything that could go wrong went wrong – awkward bounces of the ball, a ridiculous yellow card – so it was tough game for me personally, but sometimes you have games where things go wrong like that."

On Friday, long-term Toulon resident Phil Fitzgerald, the Scotland A hooker, will be in the squad alongside Lamont, and facing him for Stade Francais will be fellow Scots Simon Taylor and Hugo Southwell, the latter a rival for the full-back position for Scotland. Taylor has caused considerable surprise by asking to be excused from next weekend's Scotland squad training camp, but Lamont has sympathy for him: "If Simon feels that leaving for three or four days will interfere with his chances of selection for Stade, maybe it is better for him to stay in France."

Lamont's passion for playing for his country is in no way diminished by his move to France.

"I am committed 100 per cent to playing for Scotland and to playing to the best of my ability so that I can be selected for the national team.

"If I stay fit and get through the Stade Francais game I will be arriving in Edinburgh on the Sunday. It feels like such a long time away, and I am really looking forward to seeing some old friends and getting involved with Scotland again."

He might also bump into his big brother Sean, the Scotland winger who is a busy man at the moment with a second son having arrived three months ago just as he was leaving Northampton Saints to sign for Llanelli Scarlets – "I haven't heard too much from him, but that's understandable."

For Lamont, arriving at Toulon is a chance to take his career to a new level. The former sports science student said: "My time in Scotland (with Glasgow Hawks and then the Warriors) was just remarkable. I had always had the goal of becoming a professional player but I had struggled over the previous couple of years at Northampton Saints Academy and then I moved north and the speed of my progression was such that I felt I was living a dream.

"Winning my first cap so quickly and then scoring on my international debut, I couldn't believe how well things went in my time there. In Manchester I was unlucky with the two bad injuries I sustained which both kept me out for half a season, meaning that I really only got one full season at Sale Sharks.

"It's very similar structure and way of playing for me here at Toulon because I was with (Toulon rugby director) Philippe Saint-André at Sale. I am very familiar with it and we have spent a lot of time out on the field over the summer."

The move of so many Scots to France might seem detrimental to Scottish rugby, but Lamont doesn't see it that way: "To me it is good that there are a few players moving away. It allows younger players to come through and develop at Edinburgh and Glasgow and that can only be a good thing for the national side in the long run.

"I don't know the exact number of professional Scottish players but it's not enough, and because of the nature of the game in Europe when we don't get enough of an off-season, it's inevitable that we are going to get a few injuries.

"The fact is that we do have the players, maybe not a lot of them but we do have them, and they are the best-conditioned players of any nation, but when we get an injury to a front line player it hits us much harder."

Playing sunshine rugby is always Lamont's aim. It will help him that he is now playing in the sun.

This article was posted on 9-Aug-2009, 12:14 by Hugh Barrow.