A day with: Former England star Mark Cueto

Matt Jones - Editor 09:40 19/05/2016
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  • Cueto with young UAE rugby players.

    When sports stars eventually have to hang up their boots, it’s usually with a heavy heart. Not so for former Sale Sharks, England and British & Irish Lion three-quarters Mark Cueto.

    It has nothing to do with the fact he had no passion for the game or was only in it for the money – he simply achieved rather a lot.

    He played his entire 15-year club career at Sale, earned 55 caps for the Red Rose and was part of the Lions tour to New Zealand in 2005. Along the way he scored a fair amount of tries, won some silverware, and played with and against some of the greats of the game.

    The 36-year-old was in the UAE earlier this year coaching youngsters with fellow former players Tom May and Carl Hayman’s Everything 4 Rugby initiative.

    You retired at the end of last season. How are you finding it?

    I don’t miss the playing. Not one bit. Ultimately if I could play professionally for the rest of my life I’d do it, it’s a dream come true. Realistically you only have so many years. I did 15 and couldn’t be happier with how it went. It was the right time to retire and I did it on my own terms, I wasn’t forced to through injury, and I’ve got loads of things going on, which is great.

    You were out in Dubai recently with fellow ex-professionals Tom May and Carl Hayman putting on a camp for kids. What else are you up to?
    My bread and butter is working as an ambassador for Sale Sharks. I host matchday hospitality. I still feel a part of the club, so that’s made the transition a lot easier than if I was completely out of the game.

    How do you feel about Danny Cipriani’s leaving the club at the end of this season?
    Obviously, he’ll be a loss. This was is his third season and he’s been fantastic. He’s our one sprinkle of stardust. He’s a bums on seats type of player. Wasps is his home club, he came through the academy and won stuff there, so you can’t knock him for wanting to go back. They’re a club that really look like they’ve got the potential to go back to those glory days of 10 years ago when they were one of the best teams in Europe.

    Let’s talk about England. What a transformation from the World Cup to the Six Nations?
    At the start of January, if anyone said, ‘I think England can do the Grand Slam’, people would have laughed at you. You have to give massive credit to Eddie Jones. It’s 99 per cent the same playing squad so it shows how important the main man is and getting the environment and attitude right is. Treating them like men as opposed to schoolkids which was maybe a fault of the old regime.

    Jones is a little bit arrogant. Do you think England need that?
    The English mentality is mad. We do something great and we don’t celebrate it. If we celebrate we’re arrogant, if we don’t we’re negative. We can’t win. The first glimpse was the Six Nations. We had a good win against Scotland. We were a bit rusty so it would have been so easy to tow the line and say ‘Italy will be tough, they’re a good team’, but he said ‘look I want to go over there and smash them by 30 points’. I thought fair play, he’s not falling into line and doing what the RFU want him to do. It’s refreshing. He says it as it is. There’s no smoke and mirrors with him.

    After the Grand Slam and with a young squad touring Australia next month, are you excited?
    The tour to Australia won’t be easy so I just hope that if it doesn’t go well we don’t jump on the back of it, he needs time. They’ve done a great job but I think they’ve probably got their sights set a lot higher on where they are at the moment. The average age of that team is mid-20’s. Eddie said that any team who get to the semis or final of a World Cup, their average age is 28-29 so he’s grooming this current squad. It looks like he’s got a four or five year plan in his head.

    You look at the youngsters like Mauro Itoje, Elliot Daly, Josh Beaumont, then add to that the boys who seem to have been there a long time, players with 25-30 caps like Owen Farrell, Jonathan Joseph, George Kruis. They’re household names but still only early to mid 20’s so they’re in a really good spot. The big test is Australia. England have only beaten Australia on tour twice in the last 100 years. Eddie will know that and the Aussies are in great form too from the World Cup.

    What was your career highlight?
    You always remember your debuts. For Sale it was Bristol away. We won and I scored a try. We ended up finishing second in the league, won the Parker Pen Shield and I ended up on an England tour, so it was a pretty good year. Other than that the Premiership final with Sale in 05-06, I scored in that; my debut for England, playing in a World Cup, going on a Lions tour, there’s loads.

    Who was the best player you played with?
    Jason Robinson, 100 per cent. His speed, power, durability, he was like a Ferrari that never broke down. There’s guys like Jonny Wilkinson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Martin Johnson, legends of the game, but for all-round ability, he was just incredible. He could skin you in a phonebox.

    Cueto's England record

    • Tests: 55
    • Points: 100
    • Tries: 20
    • W: 29 L: 25 D:1

    What about the best you ever played against?
    Shane Williams for Wales. I always hated playing against him. I would rather play against a big guy who tries to run at or around you and you know what they’re doing.

    Luckily I never had to play against Robbo but Shane was as close as I probably got. Shane was just incredible. A small guy in such a physical game, for two guys like that to achieve what they achieved was amazing. Shane scored a ridiculous amount of tries (58 in 87 games), that’s wild, it’s like schoolboy stats.

    What was is like being a part of that Lions tour to New Zealand?
    It’s a shame because that one tour was the only tour that’s been run unlike a Lions tour. I think Clive (Woodward) got it wrong. Usually it’s a 31-32-man squad, he picked over 40, and we were split from the start, the midweek team and the Test team, and it was very much them and us. We were unbeaten midweek but we never won a Test. It’s massive to play for your country but to make a Lions tour and to have one of those shirts hanging on the wall back home is amazing.

    You scored a try in the 2007 World Cup final but it was disallowed and you went on to lose to South Africa. Coincidence?
    I still think it was a try. People always say South Africa had another gear and never really got going. I’m not sure they did. The final score was 15-6 but they never got near our try line. All their points were penalties. If we’d have scored when I scored the try at 9-3 down that would have been 9-8, Wilko would have probably kicked it, so we’d have gone a point ahead. With the fact we defended well for an hour, I think it would have completely changed the mindset for them. Obviously, we’ll never know but it was a pretty amazing experience.

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