After fifteen years at the very pinnacle of test rugby, leading the most successful squad in Welsh history, Dan Biggar tells his story.
‘As much as my limbs were beginning to creak and groan, it was the mental pressure that weighed the heaviest. That’s unique to playing ten in Wales. Whether you’re the captain or not, you carry the biggest burden . . . When I reflect on it all, I can say without any doubt that I gave it everything.’There are few more iconic jerseys than that of the Welsh number ten. Its legacy casts a long shadow from which it can be difficult to emerge. But one player has done so triumphantly: Dan Biggar, the most-capped Welsh 10 in the nation’s history.
On the pitch, Biggar is the ultimate competitor. His playing style is brash, aggressive, forthright. Yet, off the pitch, he is one of the most grounded ambassadors of the sport. For the first time, Dan offers a rare insight into this contradiction.
In The Biggar Picture he talks candidly of the power struggles within Wales’s most successful ever squad and explores his working relationships with ‘complex’ Warren Gatland, ‘genius’ Shaun Edwards and ‘underrated’ Wayne Pivac. He also addresses the crippling weight of expectation suffered by all Welsh outside halves and examines the criticism he faced for not ‘fitting the mould’, taking us into the mindset of a world-class goalkicker.
Dan also bares his innermost emotions, from the joy of captaining Wales to victory in South Africa, through Grand Slam glory and World Cup woe, to the devastation of losing his mother just weeks before becoming the Lions number 10. He opens the changing room door on some of rugby’s most compelling episodes – from the threatened strike action that could have bankrupted the game, to the proposed club merger that nearly derailed a Grand Slam campaign.
Now in a position where he can look back, The Biggar Picture is a frank and gripping account from one of sport’s most compelling figures.
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