Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies will line-up in the Welsh midfield for the 40th time together on Sunday as they take over the mantle of being the world’s most settled centre partnership following the retirement of the Irish legends and New Zealand’s World Cup winners Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith.
Nonu and Smith signed off after helping the All Blacks to retain the World Cup at Twickenham with 60 appearances, overtaking O’Driscoll and D’Arcy’s previous world record of 56 during the tournament. Now it is the turn of the Welsh duo to chase the record.
For Roberts, with two Grand Slams, another RBS 6 Nations title, 74 Welsh and 3 British & Irish Lions caps already under his belt, that is just one of the items on his rugby horizon after admitting to ‘falling back in love’ with rugby after the bitter disappointment of losing at the quarter-final stages in the World Cup.
A two-month sabbatical during which he began his post-graduate studies at Cambridge University, and played for the Light Blues in the Varsity Match, refreshed him both physically and mentally before returning to the professional game with new club Harlequins two months ago.
“The build up to this Six Nations has been different but that step away from professional rugby gave me a new-found love of the game,” said the 29-year-old Roberts.
“My career has been really serious for nine years. So to step back and play with guys for fun, without pressure or money, made me just appreciate it more than ever.
“Lads would be late for training because of lectures, which was awesome – I wasn’t late because I didn’t go to lectures! But I realise how lucky we are to play rugby for a living and it’s made me happier and hungrier and I’m certainly hurting less than usual at this stage of the season.”
Roberts had to play through the World Cup without Davies alongside him while the Clermont Auvergne centre recovered from knee surgery. Now they are back in tandem and hoping to prove their styles complement each other, rather than clash.
“People always try to pigeon-hole players, but we’ve worked hard to make it work. It was hard for Jon to miss the World Cup, but he is back and bouncing around the place – he’ll be fired up in Dublin,” added Roberts.
