From cloud nine to rock bottom, it’s been some journey for Callum Sheedy over the past year or so. But now he is ready to put that behind him and look to the future.
The 2020-21 season was one to remember for the fly-half from Cardiff. He won the Six Nations title with Wales and helped Bristol finish top of the table in the English Premiership.
By the same token, last term was one to forget, as he shared in his club’s struggles and slipped down the international pecking order, culminating in his omission from the summer tour of South Africa. Unsurprisingly, it is a tale of boom and bust which leaves him in a reflective mood as we sit down for a chat pitch-side at Ashton Gate.
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“It’s been strange, to be honest," he says. "That 2020-21 season, with the Six Nations and winning the league with Bristol and then the play-offs, it was bonkers. It all happened so quick. I didn’t even have time to think about anything.
“Then obviously last season happened and results didn’t go our way here. We went from finishing top of the table to losing six out of the first seven league games. It’s hard then to keep enjoying it.
“You have just been capped, you have won a Six Nations, you’ve just played your 100th game for Bristol. Everything is hunky dory, everything is brilliant. Then you go from being on cloud nine to almost being rock bottom within the space of 10 months.”
Sheedy continues: “The first half of last season, I wasn’t happy with how I was playing. If I’m honest with myself, I didn’t play my best rugby. I was just beating myself up over the tiniest things. I would finish a game, we would lose and I would say to myself ‘if you had done this, we would have won’ and ‘it’s your fault’. I was just beating myself up into a hole.
“I was over-thinking and trying to do too much myself, trying to re-invent the wheel when I didn’t need to. I was spending more and more time in the analysis room, more and more time worrying about why he wasn’t in this position and why he wasn’t doing this.
“Really, when I look back, I was the one who wasn’t doing my own job because I was worrying about other players, if that makes sense. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle. In my head, I was doing what I thought was best for the team, but in reality the best for the team was getting my own house in order.
“The turning point was when we played Leicester here on Boxing Day. Before that match, I remember saying, ‘listen, focus on yourself, enjoy the game, get your own house in order’. I actually played pretty well and we should have beaten them. I thought I had a decent second half to the season after that.”
So did he start doing anything differently?
“It was more mentally," he replies. "I had been beating myself up a lot after games and I thought ‘why am I doing this?’ I stripped it all back.
“I stopped overthinking things. I wasn’t putting too much blame on myself, I wasn’t trying to focus on other people’s jobs. It was just get yourself right, get your own jobs right and then the rest will take care of itself.
“As a fly-half, you have a big control on a game and it’s quite easy to get bogged down in what other people are doing and forget about your own job. You are going ‘why aren’t you here?’ and then all of a sudden you’ve missed where you are supposed to be. When you are in those tough times, they are horrible but then when they finish you almost learn more from them than the good days.”
Sheedy, who turns 27 in October, accepts that ups and downs are part and parcel of a rugby player’s life. He experienced that first-hand during Wales’ 2021 Six Nations triumph.
Having made his debut in the autumn, he went on to play an important role during the Championship, coming off the bench in all five matches as a replacement for Dan Biggar and making some telling contributions. But it wasn’t all plain sailing.
“After the Scotland game, people were messaging me on social media saying ‘you’ll never play international rugby, you can’t kick’. Then two weeks later I played against England and kicked pretty well.
“We won the Triple Crown and everyone is messaging me saying ‘you are going to be the Wales 10 for the next 10 years because you are a great kicker’. I was thinking ‘jeez you are the same person who told me I wasn’t up to it a fortnight ago’.
“I understand it comes with the job and social media is fantastic for a lot of things, but I took myself off Twitter because I was subconsciously reading stuff I didn’t need to read. It was the best thing I have ever done, to be honest. I feel a lot more refreshed now. Joe Bloggs in the stand can think I’m brilliant or rubbish, I have no idea. It’s refreshing.”
After the Six Nations title success, Sheedy started against both Canada and Argentina in the summer of 2021, while Biggar was away on Lions duty, but there were to be no starts last season, as he was limited to bench outings against Fiji, Ireland, Scotland and Italy. Then came his omission from the tour party for South Africa, with Gareth Anscombe and Rhys Patchell preferred as the fly-half back-up to Wales skipper Biggar.
“First of all, it was great to see Chicken [Anscombe] back and doing so well out there. I sent him a text after the win in Bloemfontein. Patch has had a tough time with injuries, so to see him back as well is excellent. You’ve got [Rhys] Priestland, Jarrod [Evans], Sam Davies, as well as Dan obviously. You could name more again. That’s what you want as a country, you want competition in every position.”
On the subject of failing to get the nod from the Wales selectors for the tour, he adds: “Wayne [Pivac] was pretty clear with me, he was pretty straight with me. He said 'this is what you need to work on, this is what you are doing well', it wasn’t just all negative. It was a case of 'you are doing this really well, but you need to work on this'.
“I can’t go into too much detail, but he’s given me clear points I need to work on. I’ve been trying my best to do that over the summer and hopefully come the start of the season I can show Wayne I have been working on that and then that will lead me back to selection.
“Obviously, missing out on the summer tour was really disappointing, but it gave me a chance to reflect, have a bit of time off and a bit of a break mentally. It just makes me so hungry now this season. I’m really excited for it. With the World Cup, Bristol, everything is just geared towards being a huge year and it gets me so excited thinking about it.
“For me, it’s about getting my house in order here because if I don’t play well here I’m not even going to get spoken about. If I do play well, then hopefully the coaches in Wales will see that and I can put my name on the table and get back in the mixer. I really want it to be a big season.”
The 16-cap Sheedy lives in Winford, some eight miles south of Bristol, and is coaching the first team at his local club Chew Valley RFC, who have just been promoted to Regional 1 South West, in level five of English rugby.
“It’s near where I live, so I was doing a bit of training there during Covid and got speaking to the director of rugby and he asked if I wanted to come down and do a few sessions,” he explained. “The problem with me is I can’t do something just for a couple of sessions. I was fully invested, fully heart in it from the start, but I absolutely love it.
“It’s quite a nice break from the professional environment. It’s refreshing and it kind of gives you that enjoyment of rugby back. I am loving the coaching role and enjoying the low-keyness of it and just sort of chilling out.
“As you know, the professional environment is very intense, so it’s good to have the opportunity to switch off. I love football, I’m a massive Leeds fan and go to see them whenever I can. It’s my old man’s fault. Back when he was young, they were the glory days with Tony Yeboah and all them.”
Sheedy has now been with Bristol for eight years, having originally moved to the west country to study at Millfield School, in Somerset, having attended Corpus Christi back in Cardiff.
As for his future, he says: “I am in contract now and I’ve got another couple of seasons here, so my focus is Bristol. It’s such an exciting season coming up, with so much on the line. It’s what we play the game for. I am refreshed and ready to go now.”
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