Neath’s players welcomed Allan Bateman to the club by locking him in a toilet for an hour on their coach travelling back from a game in London.
Every time he tried to open the door, he recalls in his book There and Back Again, he’d be set upon and have to bolt himself back inside.
Luckily for him, all the cans of beer were stored in the said toilet, a circumstance that Bateman used as a bargaining chip to secure his release in one piece.
The getting-to-know-you process in rugby can take various forms.
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At the Ospreys, maybe the first challenge for any new boy is to earn the respect of Alun Wyn Jones, the stalwart of stalwarts who trains as he plays, with the intensity dial turned up to the max.
Sometimes, disagreements can unfold.
For a fresh face, the decision then is whether to take off in the opposite direction or stand firm and debate the point.
Rhys Davies chose the second option not long after he’d arrived at the region’s training base in Llandarcy.
“He’s always had a lot of physicality and is a competitor,” Ospreys head coach Toby Booth said at the region’s press call ahead of the United Rugby Championship game with Connacht in Swansea on Saturday evening.
“Early on, he stood toe to toe while training was going on and him and Alun Wyn Jones were introducing themselves to each other.
“That’s the first test that you need, and he’s never backed down, which is brilliant, and he has the respect of the senior pros around him and now is the chance for him to be that senior pro himself if that’s what the situation requires.”
The 6ft 6in, 18st 3lb Davies is a player with a significant future, having made considerable strides since joining the Ospreys from Bath in 2020. Earlier this month he made 29 tackles in a United Rugby Championship game against Ulster in Belfast. The Welsh visitors were missing many players, but Davies kept knocking down white-shirted ball-carriers. By the time the stats people stopped counting, no-one had ever made so many hits in a URC game.
“He’s progressed massively,” said Booth. “Our strength and conditioning guys deserve a lot of credit.
“His biggest growth is in terms of becoming more accurate and developing physically to become an 80-minute player. He’s increased his body mass and capacity and he’s able to bring a level of physicality that we are certainly going to need this week and indeed every week.
“That’s the exciting thing.”
Davies is one of the players the Ospreys feel they can build a pack around in the coming seasons but he is having to be patient, with second rows of the quality and experience of Jones and Adam Beard also at the club.
“I’m lucky to be on the bench in a way, to express myself and play, but it can be frustrating because you want to start,” he said.
“I guess you just have to take it on the chin and play your best when you do get a chance.”
For all his promise, he knows it is still early days for him.
And he knows it isn’t enough for a modern-day lock just to push his weight in the scrums and win lineout ball. Today, those are just starting points, albeit important ones. The 21st-century second row also has to carry ball hard into contact, make an impact at many rucks, possibly even achieve breakdown turnovers, perhaps call lineouts, add ballast to mauls, and, if your name is Leone Nakarawa, come up with half-a-dozen dream offloads every game.
Fortunately for Davies, he has expert tutors in fellow locks Jones and Adam Beard. Asked what he has learned off the international duo, he said: “You have to bring intensity every day and you can’t have off days. You have to keep improving and keep growing and keep developing.”
Messrs Jones and Beard are always willing to help. “They are good, particularly with the lineout side of it. We get on well and talk to each other about the game, how to improve and the threats and dark arts in there as well,” said Davies, who identified areas where there's scope for him to get better.
“I need to get my hands on the ball more.
“But I do like hitting rucks and hitting them hard.
“Mainly, I’d say my carrying could be improved and I could develop in respect of calling and non-calling at lineouts. Perhaps I could play a bit of back row and increase my general knowledge across the set-piece, but carrying is the main one.”
Ex-Wales lock Luke Charteris helped Davies at Bath when he played alongside the youngster and then coached him, turning into a mentor. “I can’t speak highly enough of him,” said Davies, who has ambitions to play for Wales after winning a call-up last year without being capped.
“Everyone wants to play for Wales when they are younger,” he said.
“I still do.
“I enjoyed training with them last year. It was nice to see that intensity.
“It was tough because I didn’t play any minutes, but you just have to be resilient and understand that’s the standard in the Wales set-up and you just have to keep pushing and that’s where I want to get to.
“It’s top of my list, playing for Wales.
“But it starts with playing well for the Ospreys.”
The Ospreys are in Davies’ DNA.
As a youngster born in Swansea, he’d attend their matches and Filo Tiatia actually rented out a house owned by his father.
“He’d moved out of a place and rented our house out," said Davies.
“I got to meet him and he was a nice bloke and a big character.
“So I’m deep-rooted to the Ospreys. I watched them a lot, with my first game being the match they played against Australia in 2006.”
A major test awaits against Connacht with the Ospreys hit by Wales calls and injuries.
Davies will relax ahead of the evening kick-off by taking his dog Ella for a walk along one of Gower’s beaches.
Hopefully, he won’t have to make a record haul of hits, but if that’s the requirement he won’t shy away. “You don’t want to be making 29 tackles a game,” he said, “but if you have to defend like that, you just have to step up and do it.
“Against Ulster, there were waves of attacks. As a group of forwards we could easily have folded, but the boys dug in for each other and that’s the minimum to expect now.
“It’s a young group against Connacht, and we know how tough they can be, with a lot of quality players and I think they’re a bit unlucky not to have more in the Irish set-up. I played against them last year and they are strong with a good breakdown presence and they are physical. We are going to have to match that and take it to them.
“We have a responsibility to the jersey and to the fans.”
Whatever happens this weekend, the suspicion is Davies is a player we’ll be hearing a lot more about.
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