Andy Gomarsall has been around a bit. In fact he has been a top-flight player for 17 seasons, but Christmas 2009 will stick in the memory. First because it may prove to have been his last as a professional, second because Leeds, possibly his final club, may just be on the point of putting two league wins together to haul themselves clear of the relegation zone – and third because of the cold.
"Even Dunedin wasn't a patch on Newcastle last Sunday," says Gomarsall, describing the conditions as Leeds hung on for only their second win of the season. The 16-15 victory makes tomorrow's home game against Bath probably the most important in either club's season so far. "It was bitter. I didn't think we'd play and when we did it was more a matter of survival. Entertaining was the last thing on our minds."
So was he disappointed when the news came through at half-time that despite all their efforts in the sleet and cold Bath had beaten Gloucester in their West Country derby, thus denying Leeds at least a holiday from the relegation zone. "Frankly it didn't come into our minds," he says. "As I said, we were just worried about getting through the second half. In the interval guys were in the showers, just trying to get warm."
Tomorrow though, when Bath visit Yorkshire, Gomarsall's mind will be firmly fixed on whittling away the three-point cushion between the former king pins of English club rugby and the side that has spent too long yo-yoing between the top divisions. He does not say as much, but if Leeds stay in the Guinness Premiership it might be the best chance the 35-year-old has of staying in the professional game.
That said, it never pays to write off Gomarsall. Too many have come a cropper predicting an end to his career, but he admits that his current contract could be his last.
He has taken the first steps to a career in the .com world and says he is keen to sample business. But the tell-tale remark comes while reminiscing about the days even before he joined Wasps in 1992: "Don't go there," says Gomarsall. "I'm playing with guys born in the nineties."
The date is well chosen. The decade perfectly illustrates Gomarsall's weird and wonderful career. By 1995 he was involved in his first World Cup, having been flown out to South Africa to understudy Dewi Morris, and a year later Jack Rowell called Gomarsall his "pocket battleship" and capped him. However, by 2000 Gomarsall was about to be written off for the first time when, having been released by Wasps and despite being in talks with Leicester and Stade Français, he finished up at Bedford.
Within a year, though, Gomarsall was back in the mainstream – with Gloucester. "That was a weird one," he says and "weird" is a word that crops up a lot when Gomarsall reviews his career. "I was looking to go back to Wasps and Nigel Melville [the then head coach] said he wanted to sign me, but not for Wasps. He was on his way to Gloucester and he wanted me there."
Coach and scrum-half stayed together for five seasons before the second "weird" period in a career which will be long past 200 league games by the end of the season. Melville waved goodbye to Kingsholm, later to become chief executive of American Rugby, while Gomarsall moved up the M5 to Worcester. "In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do. I was signed at Sixways by Andy Keast, and I arrived to find that he'd been sacked," says Gomarsall, who was about to go the same way.
After less than a season of his three-year contract and about a month before his twin daughters, Indianna and Olivia, were born, he was called in for his annual appraisal only to be told he wasn't "value for money. They wanted me to find another club".
The dispute was eventually settled in court, but Gomarsall's career was about to take another "weird" turn; from being unemployed and playing for a pub team, the White Hart Marauders, to laying on the try which enabled England to beat France in Paris and reach the 2007 World Cup final against the Springboks.
There the key figure was Dean Richards, the coach Gomarsall had spoken to at Leicester in 2000, but who, six years later, was acquiring iconic status at Harlequins. The two stayed together, while Gomarsall reignited his club and England careers, for almost three years until Richards resigned after Bloodgate and Gomarsall was again released.
"I considered retiring at that point," Gomarsall says. "I was in the middle of setting up a few things. I'm involved with a company called Mashsport.com – a website for grassroots sport – and Ram, which supplies rugby and cricket kit to schools." Instead, though, the desire to keep on playing lead him to accept a 10-month deal at Headingley.
But what of the future? Gomarsall says that so far there has been no talk of contract extension: "It's a possibility that this could be my last, but because I love playing so much I want to keep on going as long as possible. But it's other people who will make that decision and not too many are looking for old, experienced players at the moment.
"I'm a dead ringer for being a coach sometime and if the right kind of thing came up then I'd obviously have a look at it. But the people I grew up with and played with tell me you're a long time retired."
