It is probably not the time to be digesting any offering by a member of England's World Cup squad: they have had enough of reviews and the title of the autobiography of Simon Easterby, the former Ireland, Lions and Scarlets flanker, is suggestive enough of upheaval. Easterby was born in England where he landed his first professional contract with Leeds, played 65 internationals for Ireland, becoming the country's most capped flanker, and has spent most of his working life in Wales where, since a knee injury ended his playing career last year at the age of 35, he has been the Scarlets defence coach.
His book Easter's Rising (Y Lolfa, £9.95) is more than a timeline of his career. Sporting autobiographies have come to be scorned as a genre because they are generally seen as a way of making money by saying too little or too much, superficial either way. Easterby's life story is different because it focuses as much on his upbringing and his life away from rugby as it does on his exploits as a successful sportsman.
Before the end you have a feel of the man as well as the player: he includes dozens of photographs of his family as well as action shots and he mixes humour, such as the aftermath of his first Ireland cap and a naked romp through the team hotel, with pathos, recounting the final days of his father, who had a terminal illness.
Easterby was born and brought up in Yorkshire but always wanted to play only for Ireland, the land of his mother, who was a hockey international. When the then England coach, Clive Woodward, rang him in 2000 to ask whether he would be interested in touring South Africa with England that summer, he said he would stick with Ireland, even though it had been three years since he had played for them at A level.
It is a well-written account with only a few minor errors, and one bigger one: Michael Collins was not executed in a Dublin jail during the Irish civil war, but murdered in County Cork. It is generously laced with anecdotes, one concerning his stag party in 2005 when he found himself at Grace Road, watching cricket as Leicestershire took on Australia. "I found my way up to the Australian dressing room. Guy [Easterby's brother] and I just walked past whoever was at the bottom of the stairs and knocked on the door. It opened and there they all were, sitting around during the tea interval. 'Isn't it time you retired, Ricky?' was my question to the legendary Australian captain, Ricky Ponting … I was asked to leave. England went on to win the Ashes later that summer. I always feel that I had a small part to play in that victory with my small, slightly intoxicated intervention on behalf of English cricket."
