Regan Grace tells the story of a boyhood encounter with Shane Williams, a rugby player he idolised.
“I met him when I was still in school. He was doing something with housing and he was in Port Talbot town centre, so me and a friend went on to him and had a picture taken,” says Grace.
“He was great about it and an amazing player as well, the type of player I loved watching, who could beat an opponent with his feet and do special things.”
Children have since come onto Grace himself to ask for pictures via their camera phones; autographs are requested, too. Nothing is refused, because the Port Talbot boy is grounded and hasn’t forgotten where he came from. He never will. The gritty old industrial town that no-one can ignore instils certain values that tend to stay with those who are raised there.
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When he left to try his luck at rugby league with St Helens as a 17-year-old, he phoned his mother to tell her he was coming home because the training was so tough it was like being in the army. He later reported that after the first gym session he couldn’t lift his arms for days. His mother told him to stick at it and he did exactly that, to the point where he became an eye-popping success, scoring 89 tries in 143 games and appearing in three Super League grand finals, all of which he finished as a winner. He also helped Saints to their first Challenge Cup success in 13 years.
Then…what next?
You are reminded of Sid Waddell’s famous line at the darts back in the day. "When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer … [Eric] Bristow's only 27."
Except there were worlds still to conquer for Grace. In rugby union.
Could he succeed in 15-a-side? Could he light up the union code with the kind of spectacular tries that made him such a luminary in league?
Could he prove good enough to play Test rugby for Wales and line up at the Principality Stadium with the hairs on the back of his neck standing upright as Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau reverberates around the ground, an experience like no other?
Might he feature in union’s World Cup?
So many questions, all of which were impossible to ignore.
Grace duly made the call to head back to the sport he grew up playing, signing for Racing 92 in Paris.
Sadly, fate hasn’t been kind, with the Welsh player suffering a serious achilles injury playing for St Helens against Salford on July 31. It was beyond cruel.
“It broke my heart,” says Grace. “I’d signed my contract for Racing and knew I had one or two more jobs left to do for Saints and that was to get us to the grand final and win it before I left.
“Then the injury happened, in the 79th minute. I think there were 10 seconds left in the whole game. I came back for a carry, caught the ball and my achilles just went bang.”
An operation followed and a world of hard work. Grace hopes to return in the spring but will not hurry matters. The key is to come back fit and firing, so he can do himself justice and make an impact, perhaps with the same slashing breaks that he made in league, and the improbably brilliant tries. Do that and the French will take to him, for he has what Thierry Henry once called va va voom.
“I’m where I should be with the injury,” he says. “We said March time would be a good target to aim for. I feel like we’re on track and the physios have said the same.
“That said, we don’t want to rush anything.
“I want to come back when I’m fit and feeling good and when the medical people say that I’m ready.
“How long it takes can depend on a few things, among them your weight and the position you play and what the demands are. If I was scrummaging and stuff, it would take longer.
“I’m hoping I’ll be like I was.
“Some people say when they come back they actually feel as if they have more spring.
“It felt super-tight after I took off the surgical boot. But there’s a lot of work to get it back to something like near normal.”
Wayne Pivac took part in discussions over Grace, keen to give himself as many selection options as possible for the World Cup. “He’s obviously a bit of a star in rugby league,” said Pivac amid the news that the wing had made the call to return to union, referring to the 26-year-old as a ‘player of interest’.
Six months later the New Zealander was history as Wales head coach, with Warren Gatland brought in to replace him.
Gatland’s views on Grace are not known, but tries and blazing performances can be persuasive and it’s hard to imagine the new Wales team boss turning a blind eye if the reports from France are encouraging.
Did Grace speak to Pivac before switching back to union? “I didn’t have direct contact with Wayne,” says Grace.
“Some of the WRU staff did come to Saints to watch training.
“Because we’d won Super League three times in a row, we’d usually have teams coming in and wanting to know what we did, how we trained and what our schedule was like — just wanting to learn little bits.
“The WRU came up.
“I just had a chat with the staff in general.
“I knew people from there, like the performance coach Dan Clements, who was involved in my rugby league career. I had a catch-up with him.
“But that was the only time I had had a chat with people from the union.”
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It’s probably getting ahead of ourselves to ask if Grace feels he will able to put himself forward as a selection option for Wales at the World Cup, but, still, he was so highly thought of in league, classed as a ‘potential superstar’ when just out of his teens, that the query doesn’t seem outlandish, albeit his injury has left him with limited time to prove himself at 15-a-side.
“I don’t know,” he says when asked the question. “There’s clearly not much time.
“We’ll just have to see.
“I’d love to make an impression and show what I can do. All I can do is my best and hopefully people will like what they see.
“My first priority is to start playing again.
“Then it’s about putting in good performances.
“I’m hoping it will go well. Playing in the back three is probably the best position for a player to change codes. I’ve also played the sport before. Switching to league as a teenager and turning professional was the harder one for me, swapping from union.
“There are opportunities on the pitch in union.
“When I’m watching matches, I see parts of the game when I think: ‘I could have a go there’ or ‘I’d back myself there.’ Especially when I’ve been watching matches in the French league.”
Grace was linked with a return to Wales but the Welsh regions are being challenged financially and when Racing came in, the fit just seemed right. “Returning to Wales was something I looked at,” says Grace. “But squads were pretty full. It wasn’t something I turned down or anything. It’s just the timing wasn’t there for both sides. There were options, but next year would have been better. But I wanted to switch back to union right then, the sooner the better so I could start learning.
“Racing have great facilities and are very ambitious. I told them what I wanted to do and they told me what their plans were. We both wanted to win.
“They knew that I came from a club with a culture that’s all about winning.”
His affection for St Helens is sincere and endearing: “They are a great club, on and off the field, and their values are good values. There are great people there and the club teaches you the importance of hard work and being honest.
“Some of those things are great life values as well.
“I feel my time with them will help me a lot.
“It was a tough call to leave, because I’d been there since I was 17. I was a kid when I arrived but the place became my home for eight years.
“When you’re in a good place and you’re winning and you are comfortable, it’s hard to go elsewhere. You think: ‘Why would I leave what I have now?’
“But I’ve always had boxes in my head that I wanted to tick.
“Becoming a pro in union was definitely one of those.
“Every kid who plays union in Wales thinks: ‘I want to play for the national side when I’m older.’
“I was no different.
“But I chose a different path and league went well for me.
“I just felt it was time to try something different.”
Was the possibility that one day he might play for Wales at union part of the appeal of his switchback? “Of course,” he says. “If I was playing league for the rest of my life, it would be out of the question. So it’s another positive of going to union, trying to put myself on the map for that.”
Now, Grace is based in the French capital, adapting to his new life with all its attractions and challenges. “I live about 20 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, which is mental,” he laughs.
“I’m doing my best to learn the language but it is tough. For the first month after I got here, every day I got home I couldn’t keep my eyes open, because I was so tired trying to focus and listen and understand what people were saying.
“I am starting to pick things up. I find myself sitting there, listening and picking bits out of people’s conversations. I can’t really hold a conversation with someone, but I’m learning as I go along. We have lessons with the club and I’m going to have some private tuition, because it’s important. I don’t want to just be here and come away without learning the language.”
Grace still keeps an eye on league but is committed to making a success of his union career.
“I was super-proud of the effort Wales put in during the Rugby League World Cup,” he says.
“They weren’t just there. They showed up and gave it a proper go and could have beaten the Cook Islands. They deserved to come out of the tournament with at least one win.
“But I thought they were outstanding.
“I’ll always follow league, just as I like plenty of other sports.
“But my main focus is on union now. Because I started so young in league, I still have time to give union a proper go and see what I can make of it. The plan is to stay in union and do as well as I can.
“Hopefully, that will happen.”
Plenty of others will want it to happen, too.
How he fares in Paris will be one of the year’s most fascinating plots.
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