WHEN FORMER IRELAND flanker Neil Best explains how he selects his targets, he almost sounds like a military sniper. And back in the autumn of 2006 there was probably no harder hitter in world rugby than the bulldozer from Belfast.
The fiery flanker is famous for levelling opponents with either bone-liquefying hits or huge haymakers and when he shares his tackling technique, you quickly understand how he put a hurt on so many opponents.
‘Ideally you want the opposition to be coming off the touchline,” Best says.
“You want their out-half to be picking out a forward. You stand as about the fifth or sixth man in the defensive line away from the ruck, so you are wide. When they look inwards to take the ball, you cut across and f**king wipe him out. When they take the ball they will expose their ribs and that’s where you bury your shoulder.”
Never has a journey between process and result looked so seamless. His destructive peak may have been in the previous decade but at 35, Best still makes a living in the game playing for London Scottish in the English second-tier.
Now, his shuddering smashes are enjoyed in Youtube compilations rather than on the pitch.
“I don’t do much of that now,” Best says.
“I try to stay out of trouble. It’s not the same now that I have three kids. I don’t really have time to work on my physique so it is harder to make those big tackles.”
He might not crunch opponents as much as he used to but Best is enjoying life at the Championship club, who are currently in fourth place pushing for promotion to the Aviva Premiership.
He says their head coach, James Buckland, is the best he has ever played under and at 33, thinks he has a huge future in the game as he gains experience.
Tackling was one thing that Best never really needed to be coached and it was his calling card during his rise from Ulster novice to international flanker. He was so enthusiastic for physicality that he thought nothing of levelling a team-mate or two at Ulster training.
He even earned a unique nickname for how he conducted himself in the first six years of his career, which began with Ulster in 2002.
“They used to call me ‘friendly fire’ because I would be hitting one of our own players or accidentally stepping on them or purposefully doing something,” Best said.
“It depended on who it was whether I would hit them hard in training or not. If it was one of the dicks I would but if it was someone I liked I would leave them alone. There are always dickheads who you don’t like.”
By his own admission, Best was a wild player as a young man. After leaving Ulster, he picked up a lengthy ban for gouging at Northampton and he was also involved in a fair few punch-ups during his career.
By his estimation, he was involved in one incident at Ulster, two or three at Northampton, two or three at Worcester and none so far at London Scottish.
And that is just with his own team-mates, by the way.
He says witnessing Paul O’Connell ‘almost kill’ Ryan Caldwell with a punch in training before the ’07 World Cup – as well as having three sons – changed his outlook on violence in the game.
“I’ve mellowed a lot with age and also since the Paul O’Connell/ Ryan Caldwell incident,” he says.
“That was pretty terrifying. After that I said I would never punch someone in the face again – unless a red mist completely descends on me.”
Of course, as Best says above, exceptions have to be made in the throes of combat. Like this incident with Cobus Visagie from Ireland vs the Barbarians in 2008 (go to 55 seconds).
“I didn’t do anything there, Visagie hit me first,” Best says.
“It was a Barbarians game, I’m not going to go out to try and f**king punch people.”
One potentially mouth-watering training ground tussle would have been between Best in his prime and a young Stephen Ferris, but even someone as tough as Best knew that it would be hard to overpower that particular colleague.
“Stevie was just starting his career then but you knew early on how powerful he was,” Best says.
“I really liked him and we were usually on the same team in training. You have to pick your battles too though, he was about 18 stone and could run like the wind.”
Best’s 18-cap international career was brief but highly memorable. He was involved in Eddie O’Sullivan’s Ireland team when they were playing some of the best rugby in our nation’s history and most fans will remember his dominant all-round display against Australia in 2006.
Best put on a tackling clinic and also bulldozed some Wallabies in attack too, but he doesn’t remember the game as fondly as most fans.
“I remember it was raining beforehand and I was just thinking, ‘I couldn’t be arsed for this’,” Best says.
“I had given away a few balls against South Africa so I just wanted to get through it without making any boo-boos. The Tuqiri tackle was actually very easy to make because he had just passed the ball and his ribs were exposed. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was just doing my job, I didn’t think it was anything special.”
One great perk about interviewing Neil Best is being able to pull out a question like, ‘Who is the most well-known rugby player that you have punched in the face?’
Andy Ward was one name discussed, but ultimately he settled on a two-time Scottish Lion.
“Back in 2007 we were playing Edinburgh and I punched Simon Taylor,” he says.
“It was a case of mistaken identity because I thought he had done something naughty to me so I caught him with an uppercut. Then he recently added me on LinkedIn and said ‘I still have that scar from when you caught me’. I explained to him that I meant to get somebody else.”
