Revealed: British & Irish Lions star came ‘very, very close’ to NFL switch and the All Blacks wing that was also ‘talked up’
Anthony Watson reveals how close he came to switching to American football and hails Bath ahead of Challenge Cup Final.
Anthony Watson has revealed for the first time how close he came to switching to American football before Christian Wade and Louis Rees-Zammit made the move from rugby union.
The former England and British & Irish Lion was targeted by NFL scouts during the 2015 Rugby World Cup, with two-time Super Bowl winner Osi Umenyiora hailing his “great hands, very good step and explosive pace”.
Watson, 31, has always been coy on the subject but a decade on, having been forced to retire from rugby on medical grounds, he admits that, but for a freak injury, he would likely have taken the plunge.
“I was very close, I’ll be honest. Very, very close,” he told Planet Rugby, ahead of Friday’s Bath-Lyon European Challenge Cup Final which he will work for host broadcasters Premier Sports.
Achilles injury
Admitting it was an itch he was desperate to scratch, Watson added: “I had a few meetings and, literally, was considering it when I ruptured my Achilles again [for the second time in four months]. After that I realised I needed to maximise what I did in rugby.”
The ex-Bath and Leicester flyer appeared on the NFL radar at the 2015 Rugby World Cup which Umenyiora, the league’s London-born UK ambassador, attended to scout transferable talent.
The former New York Giants’ defensive end emerged from the tournament concluding that two players – one from the Home Nations – had the tools to make it Stateside.
“No doubt about it, the guys in question are genuine candidates,” he told me at the time. “Their particular skill sets transfer over. We think they will be very good.”
Umenyiora would not name the players in question but later talked up Watson and World Cup-winning wing Julian Savea, who scored 46 tries in 54 Tests for New Zealand.
How ironic, then, that Watson’s chance should be wrecked by catching an American football during a commercial photo shoot with NFL players.
“I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t have been doing,” he said. “It was just a bit of a freak incident. I took a step to catch a ball, not sprinting, not running, just a step, and my Achilles went.
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“It was just after the [2017] Lions tour and things were really coming to a head. We were like, what are we going to do? Are we going to do this or not? Then I tore my Achilles. That was the nail in the coffin.
“After that, it was like, ‘I’ve got to rehab this for the next however long, then I want to play in the [2019] World Cup. Then, what will I be, 26, 27. No-one’s going to touch a supposed fast athlete of that age who’s just come off a torn Achilles. The NFL is the most ruthless sport in the world.”
Watson looks back on the chapter with obvious regret but recognises there was a silver lining, one pointed out to him by his surgeon.
“He basically said, ‘To be honest, you were sitting on a bit of a ticking time bomb,” Watson revealed. “‘The Achilles repair hadn’t come together the way it was supposed to’.
“If it had happened two months later I would have never played in the [2019] World Cup [in which England reached the final]. So, in a weird way, it was a blessing.
“Obviously, I wish that it just repaired the first time, that there was no re-rupture. The optics at the time were pretty horrendous, to have done that not at the club.
“Looking back now, I’m very grateful for Bath for being really receptive and just wanting to do the best by me in that situation, because they easily could have just said, ‘See you later’. I was out of contract at the end of the year. They would have been well within their rights.”
It was a turning point for Watson who would go on to claim eighth place on England’s all-time try list, with 23 in 56 internationals.
He would also extend his hold on the Lions No.14 jersey to five successive Tests by adding to his three starts against New Zealand in 2017 with the first two against South Africa in 2021.
“After the re-rupture I changed my mindset,” he admitted. “I really switched on to the fact I only had a finite amount of time to achieve what I wanted to achieve.
“I really didn’t want to look back with any regrets, I wanted complete peace of mind – to know I gave absolutely everything I could, and was able to look myself in the mirror.
“I probably took it too far a few times. You know, where it took over my life, the recovery and all of that stuff, and I had no balance. But it definitely gave me peace of mind.
“Sometimes you have to go so far one way to be able to come back and find the balance. And you know, I was pretty comfortable I was able to do that in the end.”
Watson spent the last two and a half years of his career with Leicester Tigers but played the bulk of his club rugby for Bath, whom he expects to beat Lyon, in Cardiff, for a second trophy in what could end up as a treble-winning campaign.
“With the depth that they’ve got there’s no doubt Bath can compete for three trophies,” he said. “You see how they rotate pretty regularly. That freshens boys up and it allows them to compete on three different fronts.
“They are a ridiculous squad and, fair play to Johann [van Graan], he’s brought some continuity to that team that they’d probably lacked over the past three, four years.
World is their oyster
“At the moment, the world is kind of their oyster. I’d be very surprised if Lyon can do a job on them because I just think they’ve got that confidence that you can’t put a price on.
“And if they win the Challenge Cup I think they become very, very difficult to stop when it comes to the Premiership. We’ve seen it with Saracens in previous years. Once you get on a roll, it’s very difficult to stop.”
Watson is taking his time to plan the next chapter of his life. He and great pal Jonathan Joseph will share a testimonial dinner this autumn which, he says, will provide closure on their respective careers.
He admits to still living in pain from the back injury that left him no real choice other than to hang up his boots.
“I could have carried on playing if I wanted to ignore the medical advice of one of the top surgeons in the UK, but you’d be pretty stupid to do that,” he said.
“So the fact it was forced upon me was a blessing, to be honest. I’m content with what I achieved but I know what I’m like, I would have played on until I’d completely ruined my back. I’ve always been one to push the boundaries.”
Anthony Watson is part of the Premier Sports team bringing live, exclusive TV coverage of the EPCR Challenge Cup Final between Bath and Lyon this Friday from 7pm. That is followed by a box office Investec Champions Cup Final on Saturday with a packed 90-minute build-up as Bordeaux-Begles take on Northampton Saints live from 1.30pm. Visit www.premiersports.com at just £11.99 a month.