Consider, if you will, the last seven months in the career of Dan Lydiate.
November saw him back in the Wales squad after an injury, only for the back rower to go through the tragic loss of his father John on the eve of the game with New Zealand. He trained the following week and started against Argentina while still grieving — “I didn’t sing the anthem before the match because, to be honest, I was crying my eyes out,” he later said.
An arm injury early in the match brought an awful week to an end and left one of Welsh rugby’s most popular players facing a four-month layoff.
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Then the 35-year-old learned that in Welsh rugby’s new world of austerity his time at the Ospreys was at an end.
Nothing official has yet been put out to that effect, but after the win over the Dragons in March, when Lydiate produced a trademark performance, he took to social media to invite clubs who might be interested to get in touch about signing him for next season. It seemed there was no contract for him after nine years with the Welsh region.
Just like the other regions, the Ospreys have to make the figures add up and they are looking to the future by prioritising young talent. It’s hard to argue with such thinking, but it leaves Lydiate potentially without a team as he heads into the summer.
And yet this week came the news that he’d been included in Wales’ provisional World Cup training squad.
The call confirmed the 6ft 4in, 18st 1lb blindside as the man Wales struggle to do without.
On countless occasions, plenty have been tempted to write off Lydiate, whether after an injury or maybe because of a perception that others in his position offer something new, shiny and different. But however good those players have been and continue to be, the selectors have been reluctant to cut the iron man from Powys adrift from the set-up.
Wayne Pivac even recalled him after a three-year absence. Why? Because no-one did what Lydiate did better than the man himself. No-one tackled quite like the teak-hard farmer. No other six in Wales had his experience or his calm in face of adversity. No-one quite had the reassuring presence of a player who once told a young Taulupe Faletau “I’ve got your back all day” after an incident in the first game they played together. Lydiate was only 22 himself at the time. Thirteen years on, Faletau still remembers that episode. Fellow players like having Lydiate around, on and off the pitch.
There have been many injuries for Lydiate since, a number of them major that have left him unable to do his job for long periods. The broken neck he sustained as a 19–year-old in 2007 was only the start of his bad fortune on the orthopaedic front. Major knee, bicep, shoulder and hamstring problems have also taken chunks out of his career.
But always Wales have summoned him back.
This latest Warren Gatland recall went a shade under the radar and would have surprised some, but not everyone, so many times has Lydiate previously confounded those who saw his time in the international picture as over.
He’d laugh off the idea of being seen as a some kind of comeback king.
But he keeps coming back for more, bringing with him qualities that can fairly be described as timeless. “I’m probably a bit old school,” he once told the RugbyPass website. “If I’m doing a job that frees someone else up, then I think I’m still valuable to the team. I may not be stood in the tramlines scoring tries, but if I’ve melted a couple of guys and instigated a turnover, I will have done my job. There’s a place for some dog in every side.”
Few at any level would disagree.
Certainly not Gatland, who this week went out of his way to speak of the need for balance and physicality in his back row. Shaun Edwards also understood Lydiate’s worth, once referring to him as “my favourite player”. How they would have approved of the seasoned forward's effort in the second Test against South Africa last summer, when he put in 18 tackles without missing over 60 minutes. One hit on 2019 world player of the year Pieter-Steph du Toit involved courage and expert technique beyond the understanding of 99.9 percent of the rest of us.
Whenever he hears the David Guetta song Titanium, which was played in the Principality Stadium when Wales won a Six Nations Grand Slam in 2012, Lydiate, player of the tournament that year, develops goosebumps.
Sample lyrics? “I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose/ Fire away, fire away/ Ricochet, you take your aim/ Fire away, fire away/ You shoot me down, but I won't fall/ I am titanium.”
Despite the knocks, one of Welsh rugby's great warriors is still standing.
An appearance at another World Cup would be testament to his uncommon endurance and remarkable resilience.
Plenty will hope it happens.
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