My Life in Rugby: Will Owen – Today, it’s our baby who runs the show

People are always curious about how we make it work. My wife, Eleanor Tomlinson, is an actress who has starred in Poldark and recently The Couple Next Door and her world moves in bursts – long days, location shoots, a project here and then somewhere miles away.

Rugby gave me a different rhythm: weeks built around Monday-to-Saturday graft and the brief, brilliant chaos of match day.

Now, with our little girl just eight months old, we do what every family does – we juggle, we compromise, and we laugh when plans change.

And yes, the lads gave me stick at first. There’s always a line about “how the other half live”.

Down a peg

In reality, we’re just two people figuring it out, the same as everyone else. And if you need to bring me down a peg, a Tuesday contact session will do it quicker than anything else.

A lovely twist this year was a call from the Barbarians to play against Glasgow Academicals.

It came while I was sat in the coaches’ office at Clifton. “The actual Barbarians!?” It turns out, yes.

We flew up on the Wednesday. In true Baa-Baas fashion, there was a bar tab when we landed and more stories in two days than you can fit in a column.

Brian Ashton coached for the week – a gift, genuinely.

After a decade in the Championship of structure and policy, it was liberating to be told to play what you see, move the ball, and trust your instincts.

We were sensible on the Friday, played on the Saturday, and were less sensible again on the Saturday night.

On the charge: Will Owen in action for Clifton and, below, his wife Eleanor Tomlinson
PICTURE: Ian Clark

Early memories

I was born in Coventry – which feels apt, because that’s where my professional career ended – and I grew up down the road at Kenilworth RFC.

Dad took me to minis when I was four. My earliest real memories are six or seven years old: tag belts, muddy fields, and the desperate wish to be allowed to tackle.

Kenilworth was my club right through to 18. It taught me the basics and the joy, which is all any junior set-up can do.

University pulled me across the bridge to Wales. I went to the University of Glamorgan, now USW, and played uni rugby.

A couple of invitational games for Welsh Charitables and Welsh Academicals led to a chance in the Newport Gwent Dragons academy.

It lasted a season. Getting released stung, and I left university at the same time.

Faith matters

I moved home and rang Kevin Maggs at Birmingham Moseley. He told me to come in for pre-season and back myself. Everything that followed grew from that phone call.

I loved Moseley – and I loved working with Maggs. I’d always had a chip on my shoulder about not being the most natural ball-player at 12.

It crept into my game because I tried to be something I wasn’t. Kevin put an arm round me and a line in the sand: build your game around your strengths.

Carry hard. Win collisions. Defend with intent. Distribute simply and well. It sounds obvious written down, but it changed my career.

Two years there grew my confidence and my game. Kevin backed me in big moments, including selection for the Championship XV that faced Canada.

For a young centre, that faith matters. If I have a regret, it’s leaving him a year too soon.

Lee Blackett era

Rotherham came next, signing at the end of the Lee Blackett era. The pull was powerful: a fully full-time environment and a club fresh from two top-four finishes.

The supporters were brilliant – Clifton Lane felt like a proper rugby club – and the changing room was tight.

I hit form, then my knee went. A PCL problem and five months out right when I’d found a groove.

Mark Jones started that season as head coach; his detail on skills and reading the game stuck with me.

He moved on mid-campaign, Justin Burnell came in, and he and I clicked. He’s straight, calls a spade a spade, and made me captain for the following year.

We fought like mad and stayed up. If the rugby didn’t always sing, the people and the place did.

Brilliant fit

From there, Doncaster Knights was a brilliant fit. Two top-four seasons before I arrived, a gorgeous pitch, and Clive Griffiths in charge – a proper rugby man and a great character.

My first year there was probably my best rugby. Then came the snag: what was supposed to be a routine knee tidy-up – four to six weeks, miss a couple of league games – turned into six months, and then, after setbacks, another six.

So a year out just as other clubs were starting to ask questions. The truth of long injuries is they take something with them; I was never quite the same athletically after that.

What matters is how people treat you when you can’t give them anything on a Saturday, and Donny looked after me.

Ownership, coaches, staff – they were brilliant. Plenty of lads in the Championship have been cut loose with 12-month injuries. I wasn’t. I won’t forget that.

Privilege 

I always wanted to play for Coventry. Dad did, back in the amateur days – fly-half, full-back, wing – and we’re one of only a couple of father-and-son pairs to represent the club across its 150-year history.

After Doncaster, dropping south to National One never felt right, so I waited until Cov were back in the Championship and made the move.

Three seasons forged strong friendships and the privilege of pulling on the same crest Dad once wore.

The first year was frustrating. Selection can be “horses for courses” and as a player you just want to run out every week.

Rory Jennings and I are very different 12s, and chopping and changing isn’t a rhythm I enjoy.

There were robust conversations – as there should be – and then it settled.

Two good seasons followed, one of them in the eerie quiet of Covid, when you could hear every tackle echo off empty terraces.

Life changing

All the while, life was changing. Eleanor and I got engaged, she put down roots in Bristol, and I was doing that two-hour-each-way slog to training.

Add in post-Covid finances, and the next move started to write itself. I joined Clifton because I wanted to build a life in Bristol and still play for a proper rugby club.

Darren Lloyd, then DoR, opened the door and we’ve become good mates. These days I’m player-defence coach, S&C lead and still lacing the boots.

It’s a club run by rugby people – Matt Salter is DoR, Luke Cozens is head coach – and the atmosphere in the clubhouse is what the game is supposed to feel like.

We came up from National Two to National One last season, which has been a challenge, but that’s why we play the game.

Passion

I’ve always loved the physical side of the game, so moving into S&C made sense.

I still do one-to-one personal training at Clifton for the general population, but my passion is athletic development for rugby players.

The sport has changed; the average player is heavier and faster than he was a generation ago, and the contact demands are relentless.

There’s a lot of nonsense advice out there. I try to be an antidote to that.

I coach online in two ways: bespoke one-to-one programming and a group coaching format for aspiring players.

It’s early days, but the results have been really encouraging. Clifton have just signed one of my lads – tighthead Patrick Ratumaisese, who’d been up at Highland RFC in Scotland and seeing him earn a first semi-pro contract was a buzz.

TV life

If you want to find me, I’m on Instagram at @willowenPT.

The part I enjoy most is taking all the lessons from Mags at Moseley, from the details Mark Jones drilled at Rotherham, from Clive’s hard-earned wisdom at Donny, from the best bits of my own playing identity, and giving them to a 17-year-old who might just need someone to say: “Build your game around what you’re good at.”

People ask about the “TV life”. The truth is, it’s just our life. Sometimes I’m the one away with rugby; sometimes she’s the one away with work.

Sometimes we both are, and we borrow grandparents and favours to make it all add up.

I get gentle grief from the boys now and again – it’s rugby, there’s always banter – but they know the score.

We both care deeply about what we do, we both work hard, and we both go home to the same very small person who wants her bottle now!

– as told to Ben Jaycock