Warm welcome for once-hated Catt

Chris Jones13 April 2012

Catt-baiting used to be an English rugby pastime, practised by the Barbour brigade at Twickenham on a defenceless creature standing alone on a large patch of well-tended grass.

The participants in this unseemly 'sport' would wait for the Catt to make a very obvious mistake and then bombard him with jeers and boos. The cumulative effect was severe and it took months for their wounded prey to recover.

On Saturday, Mike Catt - the target of those attacks - will walk alone onto that same patch of grass to accept the applause of a sell-out 75,000 crowd at Twickenham for the clash with Italy.

The Bath centre will lead his country out in recognition of his 50th international cap, a figure that proves he really has survived all the Catt-baiting.

The 29-year-old made his England debut as a replacement against Wales in 1994 and the intervening seven years have been a roller-coaster ride for the South African-born utility back.

Catt's problems with the Twickenham crowd developed because all too often, in their eyes, he was jack of all trades and master of none. A couple of goal-kicking nightmares only reinforced this view.

Inside-centre is his current role but he has also been spotted at outside-half, full-back and wing.

He was England full-back during the 1995 Grand Slam season and Clive Woodward, the current team manager, announced on arriving in the post that he would always try to find a place for Catt because he was too good to leave out. Of course, Catt had heard it all before.

But this time, Catt appears to have found a manager who is ready to stick with a definite plan and that means inside-centre for Catt and the crucial role of helping Jonny Wilkinson to run the game.

The man himself is hugely impressed with the England set-up under Woodward and that means his confidence is high. Catt is a player who needs to feel good about his game and any drop in confidence has a significant effect on his ability to translate latent talent into effective play.

He said: "To get a 50th cap is very special and probably means I am getting old! I have had some problems at Twickenham and I didn't like being disliked because I am an ordinary bloke with feelings and emotions. I have come through the amateur days playing alongside some really great players and to make it to 50 is brilliant. I realise that because the team is playing so many matches these days, there will be a host of guys who will reach this mark soon, like Matt Perry.

"Everyone is enjoying playing with this squad and it has become more like 'club England' and that's something Clive has wanted to create. We spend a lot of time together, working exceptionally hard to develop our game and when you get the basic stuff right it creates a hell of a lot of problems for the opposition.

"Against Italy, it will be the time when we have to come out and play the way we want to, work hard defensively and show our full attacking power. The Italians will work to stop the wide ball hurting them and so we have to come up with a different strategy.

"With the pace that Ben Cohen, Dan Luger and Iain Balshaw offer to the team we cause problems and all we need is for those guys to come back to the support a bit more. There were holes everywhere against Wales and the guys will be cursing themselves this week as we study the match video.

"There is nothing you can do when pace is injected into a game."

There is also no answer to awesome power when it is produced by a certain All Black No11. Catt was one of the players knocked over by Jonah Lomu during England's 1995 World Cup semi-final battering in Cape Town.

"I went in low and he literally ran all over me," admitted Catt. "He put his arms down and his sheer power knocked me over. I just didn't realise quite how big he was."

Watching from the stands that day were Catt's father Jimmy and brothers Douglas and Richard who had waved goodbye to Mike in 1993 at Port Elizabeth airport on the South African coast for what was supposed to be a short holiday to celebrate his 21st birthday. He had grandparents in Eastbourne and an uncle near Gloucester who he intended to visit.

Having played five times for Eastern Province he tried to interest Gloucester and then Bath, where rapid elevation to England Under-21 status meant his five-month visa had to be hastily extended to launch an international career that saw him return to South Africa in 1997 as a Lions tourist.

Now, Catt joins the elite group of 50-cap winners and while the South African accent is still present, his heart is with England.

Thankfully, the Twickenham crowd has finally accepted him and they will prove that with a vengeance when he runs out alone on Saturday.

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