Ask anyone at Bath to nominate the toughest member of their squad and they all say the same name. “I wouldn’t want to be playing against him,” mutters Todd Blackadder, the former All Blacks captain now in charge at the Recreation Ground. Another colleague, Beno Obano, goes a step further: “If I had to choose to go into battle with one person it would be him.”
They are not discussing an established international but rather an uncapped 25-year-old whose sole Twickenham appearance before this weekend was in a county final for Dorset and Wilts. Nor is Tom Dunn the most physically imposing front-row forward in rugby history. Not so long ago he was deemed too small to play prop and he still has to convince England’s head coach Eddie Jones he has sufficient presence to prosper at Test level.
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Yet as Bath approach what Blackadder calls a “do or die” game against Leicester – when the marketeers introduced the concept of “the Clash” they did not imagine the West Country club lying eighth in the Premiership with their self-respect at stake – the bullet-headed hooker brings other qualities, notably the “mongrel” attitude beloved of his national coach. Dunn’s tackle counts are legendary and his approach to rugby uncomplicated: “I don’t look forward to passing a ball or running a nice line, I look forward to hitting someone. I want to chop tackle them, drive my legs and finish on top of them. That’s the feeling I look for. At scrum-time I want to get into someone’s grill. It’s a mindset: you’ve either got it or you haven’t. I find it embarrassing if someone knocks me down. It’s personal for me.”
He is still beating himself up, for example, about a mistimed tackle on Northampton’s Tom Wood almost two months ago. During that same game at the Rec, he also suffered a hand injury so gruesome that two of his knuckle bones pierced the skin at the top of his left palm.
“We were picking and going under their posts and, as I was being tackled, I put my left hand down on the ground to keep myself on my feet. Charlie Ewels was trying to knock me through the gap and landed on the back of my elbow, hyperextending my fingers. I was really lucky none of the bones broke: it was just the ligaments and tendons. The biggest risk was infection due to the open wound on the pitch.”
They clearly breed them tough in Chippenham, where Dunn paid his dues playing for his local club against older, unsympathetic lower league opponents. “When you’re a 16-stone loose-head playing against 24-stone props and there isn’t a touch judge to help you … I had to do something to win.” What was his preferred method? “You hit them harder, don’t you? That’s a Chippenham thing, not a Tom Dunn thing. That’s the way they roll down there. If it’s not working, hit it harder. It was bred into me a little bit.”
Subsequent spells at London Scottish and Rotherham, as well as stints as a labourer – “I carried lead up ladders; it was heavy” – and as a barman also taught him the value of self-reliance. “Rotherham haven’t got Farleigh House, they haven’t got statues, trees, ponds and smart sofas. What they have got, if you’re lucky enough to be invited into it, is a brotherhood. I really enjoyed my time there. There’s no kit man, there’s no water man, you’ve got to look after yourself.” Not that his pro existence in Bath, now he is finally a Premiership starter, is always a sea of tranquillity. “When you’re training against Francois Louw, Charlie Ewels or Beno Obano you’ve got to physically man up day-in day-out. It’s by no means an easy ride.”
How much further he rises will largely hinge on how he fares in big games like this weekend’s, with 60,000 fans expected to attend. Blackadder concedes his man’s scrummaging still needs work but is on record as saying Dunn would make a decent All Black. “Tom’s got so much upside because he’s so tough,” Blackadder says. “He’s resilient, he’s aggressive and he intimidates his opposition. He can only get better.”
The player once jokingly dubbed the Dunnanator by his team-mates is also now alert to the risks of excessive red mist. “I’m a lot more cool, calm and considered than I used to be … it was an issue of mine. There’s something called hooker syndrome. If you do a bad lineout it winds you up. It makes you want to rush around and hit someone really hard to make amends. Very often you’ll then concede a penalty. For me it’s about not trying too hard, relaxing and believing in all the work I’ve done during the week. I’ll always back myself to do more reps than my opposite man.”
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Some sports psychology sessions have also helped to improve his lineout accuracy, an area which occasionally caused previous Bath coaching regimes to wince. “I now have a blue room and a red room. When I’m throwing I’m in my blue room. I’m thinking: ‘This is James Bond: cool, calm, smooth, slick, no fire.’ When I’m back on the pitch I’m in my red room: I’m aggressive, I’m intense, I’m fiery and hot. That’s how I break it down in my head.”
There is much more to Dunn, clearly, than a high pain threshold. As well as seeking to revive Bath’s season – “Something has to change because we’re good enough not to be where we are” – he is also determined to use England’s summer expedition to South Africa as a springboard into next year’s World Cup squad. His girlfriend, Jennifer Floyd, is due to give birth to their second child in early June but, if selected, she will still encourage him to tour. Having represented Bath Ladies in over 150 games and captained the South West herself, she knows how much a senior cap would mean.
Which just leaves Jones to be convinced the Dunnanator can offer more, pound for pound, than his bulkier rivals. “I’m not going to say I can get 15-20% bigger or grow bigger arms but I can get more efficient with what I’ve got,” insists Dunn. “It’s not your size, it’s your output.” As they say in Chippenham, if it’s not working, hit it harder.