My Life in Rugby: Scott Mathie – former Bulls, Sharks, Leeds and Sale scrum-half

Scott MathieIf there is one match I'd like to be able to go back in time and change, it would be my last game for Leeds, in May 2011.
We went down to Northampton staring into the relegation abyss. There had been a lot of dissent in the team, but we wiped the floor with Saints in the first 30 minutes, scoring three tries to lead 24-3.
I think everyone just decided to give it a bash. The importance of having a strong tight five, in the Premiership especially, was hammered home though when they brought on big guns like Courtney Lawes, and Soane Tonga'uiha in the second half and they turned things around to win 31-24.
Like I said, morale wasn't the best during that second season. When you have a routine-based environment the fun element of the game can be lost. It didn't help that Marco Wentzel and Steve Thompson were overheard being critical of some of the players over a beer in a Leeds bar. It got out and different camps started to form.
My Leeds career started when I opted to go abroad after several injury-hit seasons at my hometown team, the . Previous to that I'd been understudy to Fourie du Preez at the .
Heyneke Meyer was a great man-manager, I learned so much from him. He has a very different persona to the one portrayed in the media, possibly because he finds it easier to communicate in his first language, Afrikaans.
Enjoying success in the Currie Cup and playing at both provinces was an obvious career highlight, as was representing my country at the Junior U19 World Championships in .
My first season at Leeds was in the . had done the leg work but he left before I'd put pen to paper. Luckily Neil Back and Andy Key saw the deal through. Our Aussie conditioner Steve Nance decided we were all a bunch of ‘fat galahs' and gave us hell. Backy used that season to get us in shape for the Premiership and we went into a lot of games ‘over-cooked' and  nearly blew promotion.
We played a very conservative brand of rugby in the Premiership – based on a good kick-chase and defence. Losing most weeks made for a tense environment. You try not to think about the consequences of relegation but the reality was that jobs were at stake. The turning point was the away game at . We won when we had no right to, having shipped 50 points to them earlier in the season.
Ceiron Thomas was brilliant that year but was unable to replicate it the next. Had he done so we might have survived as goalkicking is so important.Jimmy Gopperth kept up for years! Luther Burrell, Kearnan Myall and I moved to following relegation.
Dimes (Steve Diamond) is a proper street brawler, one of those guys who could probably sell ice to Eskimos. He told us what he wanted to do at Sale and to be fair he'd got a lot of stuff done. He was the type of coach that if you won at a weekend you could have until Wednesday off, but if you lost you'd better have your boots ready to go on Sunday.
I really enjoyed my time in the UK, but they were tough years with the hard slog of the Championship and the relegation fights at Leeds and the rebuilding job taking place at Sale. I'd been in the north for four years, training in the rain pretty much every day, so I decided to end my playing days back home, with the sun on my back, at Kings. I'm now director of rugby at Durban High School.

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