Matt Banahan will, as usual, be at Bath for their first home match of the season on Saturday but this time it will be different. His familiar and well-trodden journey from the car park to the clubhouse at the club he joined 12 years ago will involve a detour to the away dressing room.
Banahan, who was one appearance away from equalling David Barnes’s record of 265 appearances for Bath in the professional era when his contract ended last season, had envisaged finishing his career at the Recreation Ground, where he was a fan favourite, but he will be seeing it out at Gloucester having signed a three-year contract.
Bath offered the wing a new contract last October, a two-year deal that kept his salary at the level it had been since 2013. But, Banahan says, it was non-negotiable and he was given a week to sign it. “It was so quick,” adds Banahan, who made his league debut in Gloucester’s win over Northampton at Kingsholm last weekend. “I was willing to talk but they were not and suddenly the offer was off the table. It hurt a lot, cutting me deeply for a good few days and really shocking me; I thought it would be my club to the end.
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“It meant I had to find another offer. I have got three kids I want to give the best upbringing to and needed to keep playing rugby. I talked to a few clubs but when I met David Humphreys at Gloucester I was impressed by his vision. I knew a lot of the boys there and it felt like the best place to come to. I had seven months to sort out my future but it made for a weird season. I was Bath’s top try scorer and played in five positions but I was going elsewhere.”
Banahan quickly became popular with the crowd at the Rec after joining – as a second row in 2006 – with his bustling, direct runs which invariably left defenders scattered across the field. What he lacked in grace, he made up for in determination, even if he showed, for a three-quarter who is taller than many locks of yesteryear, a lightness of touch in the off-load that Gloucester will surely exploit.
“I am looking forward to going back to Bath,” says Banahan, who is 31. “It is a ground I am used to and the fans were always good to me: I hope I get a decent welcome. I told people there why I was leaving and they understood. I still don’t know why Bath let me go: I scored 100 tries for them, the only professional player to achieve that, and I made all those appearances. You can’t live in the past and I am enjoying my time at Gloucester, a hungry club that a few players I know have joined from Bath before me.
“The likes of Mike Tindall, Iain Balshaw and Olly Barkley have made the move here. You cannot compare yourself to them but life is about confronting yourself with challenges to see if you can deal with them. I remember coming to Kingsholm 12 years ago when I was in the academy. I was told that if you can play well in front of the Shed, you can do so anywhere. At least they will be on my side now.”
Banahan, who was born and brought up in Jersey, did not play his first game of rugby until he was 16. Little more than four years later, he was lining up for England against Argentina, the first of his 16 caps. “It was brilliant growing up in Jersey: everything was so close and there was the beach. My father played indoor hockey for England and it was the sport I played as a teenager until I failed to make the England Under-17s. I told my dad I wanted to play rugby with my mates. I was a tall lanky kid who could run around and when I was 17 I played against London Irish amateurs. I did well, word got about and I was selected for Hampshire at under-18 level, signing professionally with Irish the year after.”
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He has not been involved in international rugby since the 2011 World Cup campaign that was known more for what happened off the pitch than what occurred on it but, self-deprecatingly, does not believe that the abrupt end to his Test career was simply down to a change in management.
“I have reflected on why I did not win more caps,” he says. “My father once told me not to try and be flash but focus on doing the basics better than your opposite number. Then the flash bits would come. The best players do the basics well and then have the X-factor when a game opens up. They are players who are world class in the Premiership and take that into an international.
“I could be good in the Premiership but I could not transfer that to the Test scene. I was fortunate to win as many caps as I did and play in a number of positions. I cannot be that disappointed. I am a kid from Jersey who has played in the Six Nations and in a World Cup alongside and against some of the best players in the world. Not bad for someone who played hockey until he was 16. I suppose I should start thinking about life after rugby, but with three years at Gloucester to look forward to, that can wait a bit.”