Rich Lane

When Pat Lam needed cover for the world-class Charles Piutau, he didn’t look for yet another galactico, but instead turned to Rich Lane, a part-time landscape gardener from Bedford with a point to prove in the Premiership.

There is a Bedford fan who travels to home games at Goldington Road from mid-Wales. Howard Travis lives in Brecon but his love for the Blues and their running style of rugby makes him get in his car most weekends and travel a long way to support his favourite club. He’s vocal too. 

One of the things he shouts is both ridiculous and a perfect homage to one particular player. As the ball is kicked by the opposition deep into Blues’ territory, the home side’s full-back will often be the one to gather the descending ball. And, if you listen carefully enough, wherever that full-back is on the pitch, even in his own 22, the same shout will go up from Howard. It is a single-syllable instruction left over from when Richard Lane played fifteen for the Blues. It is said in hope, but also expectation. ‘Score,’ he shouts. He uses these words because Travis’s beloved ‘Laner’ had a wonderful knack of attacking from deep, creating aching holes in defences and doing just as Howard wished.

Travelling east and west across England is a good way to describe Rich’s career. He talks to us from his car, parked outside his house in the suburbs of Bristol. He has battled hard to get home to speak to me at the required time but has fallen ten yards short of his front door. An unscheduled meeting with Pat Lam and Bristol’s snarled up A-roads making the journey tardy.

Not that you’d know that. His voice barely registers any strain, and his visage on the HD camera phone looks immaculate. He is a smart operator. His physique is small but taut, and his ability amidst the cacophony of a Premiership game is distinct and precise. We have all marvelled at his performances of late. He appears to be able to hold time and space on the field and is equally adept in post-match interviews. He has seemingly come from nowhere and become a first pick in most people’s fantasy teams. It may have taken us by surprise because in ably replacing Charles Piutau in Bristol colours, Rich was given two types of hope: slim and none. And in his own words, “that is when I usually play my best rugby”.

Of course, Lane hasn’t come from nowhere. Far from it. Like so many, his formative career was tough and unnoticed. In fact, he pretty much gave up rugby twice. Once after being left on the bench by Mike Ford as Bath were fifty points up against London Welsh. And the second after two seasons on the island of Jersey, having got very little ball in a forward-dominated Harvey Biljon side.

But let’s go back to when it was good and all in front of him. Our cyclical story actually starts back east, on the Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire border, at Kimbolton School. A young Rich was scurrying around football pitches in the shadow of that famous castle, when a teacher intervened with a phonecall home. “My head of sport at the time spoke to my parents,” begins Rich. “He said, ‘have you heard of a school called Millfield?’. I hadn’t, and indeed my parents weren’t that familiar. He said, ‘I can see how much ability Richard has, and I wonder if Kimbolton would be something he would quickly outgrow, sport-wise. Maybe have a think’. And without much fanfare, we did; we got the prospectus and watched the accompanying video.

“My parents had previously joked about sending me to boarding school because I was the annoying middle child,” he continues, “and then, suddenly, here was the opportunity. I had a friend, Will Twigden, who was also going and that helped. Before long I was down there, amongst all those incredible facilities. I felt a little homesick to start with, it wasn’t easy, but before long I was flying. I’d played rugby for Bedford Junior Blues but not at Kimbolton. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen, it was an option for me to play it for two terms and then do athletics and sevens in the summer.”

At Millfield, he had ex-Bath and England prop John Mallett as not only head coach, but also his house parent – where a teacher is given responsibility for the welfare of a boarding student. He was taken by how the best players were regarded. “I saw the first fifteen and how they were regarded around the school and felt I wanted a piece of that,” he says. “The quality of those around me was huge: Henry Thomas, Ben Mosses, Jonathan Joseph, Mako Vunipola, and Rhys Ruddock were all the year above. Freddie Clarke was my year. Coming through were Callum Sheedy, Tom Whiteley, Adam Hastings, Tom Ellis. You’re in great company. And John Mallett was instrumental, as a coach and a guide. Jon Brimacombe was great for me, too. Trevor Greenhill in year eleven was amazing. 

“I was his captain for that sevens season and we were pretty much unbeaten,” says Rich. “South West Sevens Champions; All England Sevens winners; we won Rosslyn Park and just the environment at Millfield, how rugby-centric things are, Jubilee Pitch in the middle of school, the way three or four hundred people would turn up to watch: it was a different level.”

Position wise, he was also finding his feet. “I felt I was a scrum half,” he says. “That was where I wanted to play, but conversations at school were around me moving to thirteen. John Brimacombe spearheaded that change. Reluctantly I did so, and then grew to love the role. It’s funny because when I arrived at Bedford, in my first season there, Mike asked me to play in the centre and I hadn’t done so since school. I was a winger and full-back at both Bath and Jersey, so that first year at Bedford took me back. Thankfully, no one has yet asked me to go all the way back to nine as I’m not sure I could do that again.”

Despite Millfield being an hour south of Bath, such are rugby’s county lines and DPP [Development Player Programme] jurisdiction, Rich was still a Northampton Saints academy prospect even though he barely attended any sessions. “Bath would come in twice a week to Millfield, send a couple of S&C coaches,” he explains. “Frank Butler was the link man at Bath and he showed an interest in me. My very good friend Ben Mosses was the year above and had made the move to Bath Academy the year before; I’d seen this all happen and it had become the new target for me.

“Frank invited me and my mum down to a box at the Rec and outlined their keenness to have me in their academy. I then had to speak to Saints and explain what I wanted to do. I had two days off after finishing my school career, and then I was into Bath: in at Farleigh House, avoiding eye contact with enforcers like David Flatman and Duncan Bell. Sir Ian McGeechan was the head coach, the playing roster was packed with superstars, it was unreal. I don’t think I dealt with it very well. I was like a rabbit in headlights for so much of that first year. Not really backing myself, not really believing I belonged there, imposter syndrome, all of that.

“And that probably sums up my Bath career really,” he surmises. “I spent four years not pushing myself, not seeing what I could do, and more time thinking that I was just lucky to be there. I had three head coaches in the four years I was there. McGeechan, Gary Gold and Mike Ford. I got my debut with Sir Ian and then had to work hard to get back in with Gary, and he offered me another two years but then when Mike came in, I don’t think he looked at me for the whole time I was there. It lost me, the whole period, ultimately: I spent four years not believing in myself, not seeing what was possible. I think the academy set-ups have changed since then, they utilise the talent at that level more effectively.”

“In my fourth year, a call came in for me to join up with the national sevens side and I was really keen. I was asked to join them for the Las Vegas leg but, heartbreakingly, Bath wouldn’t let me go. Mike (Ford) had me on the bench versus London Welsh and we were fifty points up and he still wouldn’t put me on. I was gone at that point. I was thinking, what’s the point?”

Rich dropped down to the Championship and the island of Jersey but still, the love did not flow. “It’s a great place, a great island and I enjoyed my time with the boys,” he recalls. “But rugby-wise, I was being picked on the wing, at fullback, and it wasn’t in the game plan for us to get the ball. It just felt like rugby wasn’t for me. I had a chat with Harvey (Biljon, the director of rugby) and said I was leaving. He wanted me to stay but I’d had enough. I had nowhere to go, no club to play for but that didn’t really matter. It felt like the end of the line, and I was ok with that.”

At Jersey, Rich had played with Alex Rae. The now coach of Coventry was returning to Bedford Blues after a stint on the island and an almost incidental phone call piqued an interest. “A-Rae asked what I was doing next year and I said nothing,” explains Rich. “He mentioned Bedford and, because it was my home team, I was, of course, keen. Sean McCarthy was also moving over in the front row. But Alex hadn’t spoken to Mike and previously, on leaving Bath, I’d made enquiries with Bedford and nothing had come of it. I wasn’t that hopeful, to be honest, but he said he’d have a word.”

A one-year contract was offered by the Goldington Road side but on the proviso he’d look at playing thirteen. “That first season was fun,” he says. “Some really good players: Lee Dickson, Will Hooley, George Edson, Jordan Burns, Matt Gallagher. And of course, Mike wanted me to play at centre. I was kinda like, oh, not this again, but my centre partner was going to be Michael Le Bourgeois and I had this feeling I would be okay. I loved it, got Dean Adamson a load of tries that season and I’d turned a corner. I signed on again with a two year deal the next season and started to fall back in love with the game.”

But once again a position a positional change came calling. “Chris Czekaj had signed for Bedford and getting a little more senior in his career meant he’d lost a bit of pace,” says Rich. “He was eyeing up coming back into the centre, which made a bit of sense with his international experience and knowhow, so Mikey (Rayer) asked if I wanted to drop into fullback. I remember not being happy about it. I properly whinged to Lee Dickson but in the first game I played I scored two and was made man of the match. I remember Lee bouncing over to me after the game and saying words to the affect of, ‘that’s you fucked, you’ll be playing there for the remainder of the season’.”

The 2018-19 season was Bedford at their Championship best, chucking the ball about and generally putting the willies up anyone who came visiting. Rich was in his element. Hitting every line, using his step to beat the first defender, knowing someone would always be with him; running the ball and playing with a freedom that had been missing for so long.

But the following campaign, the nation endured the pandemic and the bottom fell out of the Championship. Furloughed and isolated, without any firm route back to playing, Rich’s mind turned to how he could keep busy. “Deano (Adamson) is a gym freak and we did that solidly for about six weeks,” he says. “We trained in our garage and to start with it was good. But after a while, I started wanting something else. The groundsman at Goldington Road was Chris Ashworth and he was a landscape gardener. Just out of interest, I’d spoken to him as to what he did, working outside, enjoying himself. And then he calls me because he had a big job on and needed someone to wheelbarrow earth out of a garden. I couldn’t get there quick enough. And that’s how it started. Before long I was involved in more jobs, doing different things, and Magic (Matt Worley) was working alongside me.

“After Covid,” he continues. “We all returned to Bedford and had a meeting with the club as to how things had changed. Mike Rayer had run a semi/full-time model prior to lockdown, but now, with the cutbacks the RFU had made, that wasn’t going to happen. And we, the players, had changed too. The pandemic had got us all to reconsider where we were and we all had jobs that meant full time training wasn’t going to work. They listened to us, and to their credit and Mike’s, they adapted to what we needed and the best way to go. 

“I became a rugby player in my spare time,” he explains. “And because everyone was in that boat, it really worked. Rugby wasn’t a career or necessary money. We were all turning up to training because we loved rugby and loved Bedford. It was possibly the happiest I’ve been. The work with Ashy (Chris Ashworth) was going through the roof and I was playing great rugby at the weekend. It couldn’t get much better.”

In 2021/22, Lane had signed another one year deal with the East Midlands club and was asked to be captain, a job he was incredibly proud to hold with his boyhood club. But in the summer previous, Ealing had come sniffing and, with the amount of money on the table, Rich pondered whether a move to Vallis Way was a really the way to go at the age of 27. He sought out the advice of Paul Larkin, the then backs coach of Bedford Blues, who would eventually become head of recruitment at Bristol. “Larks told me to go for it: he said that I had to give it a go because I could always come back,” explains Rich. “But something inside of me thought it wasn’t right. Moving to London, rolling the dice on so many levels, it just didn’t sit well with me and I stuck to my guns and stayed at Bedford. 

“I think I signed at Bedford for less than half of what Ealing were offering me,” says Rich. “Then Larks moves to Bristol and, later that season, just before Christmas, we were doing a full garden refurb, just off Brickhill Drive, and my phone goes and its Larks: (Lane does and impression of Paul Larkin) ‘Alright Laner, ‘ow are ya?’. And I was like, ‘Larks, I’ve got a patio slab in my hands; I’ve got mix in the mixer, what can I do for you?’. And he said, ‘Well, I’ve been talking to Pat and he said he wants to meet ya, our back three are quite injury prone, nothing yet, but I think he wants to meet you…’”

If nothing else, he had to accept the meeting. “I agreed to meet Pat, because I felt I had nothing to lose,” he says. “I didn’t tell anyone, Magic (Matt Worley) knew because he was working with me when Larks called, but I didn’t wanna tell Mike, didn’t wanna get my hopes up and certainly didn’t want to ruin my Bedford situation.

“I had a good chat with Pat and I think it worked in my favour when I was really blunt with him. He asked what my dreams were: I said I knew I could perform in the Premiership, and I still had a chip on my shoulder about what happened at Bath. But also, I had a really good thing going in Bedford with work and the way the team was playing, and it was going to take something pretty special to lure me away from that.”

Initially it seemed to come to nothing. “Then, first week of March, again, I’m holding up a fence panel and my phone rings. A +44 number, didn’t recognise it; answer it: ‘Hi Rich, it’s Pat…what are you doing next week, do you fancy coming on loan for a month, Charles (Piutau) is injured?”.

“I had a lot to sort out. I wanted Ashy’s agreement because we had loads on with work, and I needed Mike’s (Rayer) blessing because I kinda owed him everything and I didn’t want Bedford to lose out in any way. I was skeptical, deep down, that it would be a month and it would mess up a lot of what I’d built. But I chatted to my family, friends, Kizzy (Rich’s other half) and their thoughts were that I would probably regret it if I didn’t go. And so I went.

“Kizzy’s parents live just outside of Bath so luckily, I could move in with them. I started at Bris, played midweek against the Navy and then Pat named me to start against Harlequins in the Premiership. Which would be my Premiership debut, having not played in the Prem for Bath. It was weird really.”

One month became two, then three. “I played most weeks, got selected in the Champions Cup, I played against Sarries at the Tottenham Stadium with vilonists on the roof and fireworks, it was mad,” recalls Rich. “And then I broke my foot against Sale in the Champions Cup quarter finals and I thought that was that. Mike and Pat talked and agreed that I stay at Bristol to do my rehab. And then suddenly there was a Prem contract in front of me. It was all I’d ever wanted, and yet still, I was hesitant. I spoke to Keziah, to my family, to Mike, who I owed so much too, and even when he was like: ‘We support you, go and do it.’. “There was this part of my heart that was still heavy,” he admits. “I can’t really explain it, I was in the position I has always wanted to be in, and it wasn’t how it was meant to be. Bedford, working with Chris on the landscape gardening, it had changed my outlook onto what was important. Sounds ludicrous in a way but there I was, with a brilliant Prem contract, feeling uncertain.”

Rich joined Bristol for the 2022/23 season and endured mixed fortunes. Spates of games where he played, and then moments when he was dropped and he felt the anxiety and doubts returning; then back in and enjoying himself. He had a short run of games in January but then ended up not playing again for Bristol until the following September.

But as luck would have it, unfinished business came back into view. Rich had left Bedford on 96 games played and injury at full-back meant both Lane and Rayer conspired to get him back on loan for the end of season. “I phoned Mike asking if he needed anyone,” explains Rich. “I wasn’t getting any game time at Bristol and although I knew Saints had the Dual Registration agreement with Bedford, I wanted to see if I could come back and cover injury. Mike squared it with Saints, talked to Pat and I rejoined Bedford with four games to get to my 100th appearance. That final game was against Coventry and I mentioned it to the boys at Bristol and they all wanted to come and watch. Sheeds (Callum Sheedy), Gengey (Ellis Genge), Semi (Radradra), Rands (Harry Randall), Gabs (Gabriel Ibotoye), all came to Goldington Road. James Stonor (one of the Blues’ Directors) paid for them to have hospitality and we had a great day. 

“Classic Bedford day,” he recalls, “sun was shining, we played ball, I scored twice, (we lost but it didn’t matter), three thousand in to watch, we gave Stonor a signed shirt to say thank you, lots of laughter and fun. All those Bristol boys came away saying what a great club Bedford was. That is all I could have wanted. It closed the chapter. A hundred games for your home town club. There’s not many people who can say that.”

At the beginning of this season, Bristol had let go of Charles Piutau but signed Max Malins and Noah Heward, and Rich knew he had competition from the latter, with the former away at the World Cup. “I knew I had to make an impact and I knew my best rugby was played when I had nothing to lose,” says Rich. “I worked with Bristol’s sports psychologist on a mindset we termed ‘fuck it!’. And it seems to be working! I managed to get on the end of Sheed’s incredible cross field kicks against Chiefs and a hattrick changes everything. I’m very wary when I’m talking to the press and doing these sort of interviews that it might not last but you know what, I’m in a great place. Kizzy is expecting our first child in February and, once again, my perspective has altered. I’m thinking about a job after rugby with my good friend Ed Coulson and I’ll just do what I can for Bristol.”

In speaking to Rich, you are reminded of where rugby is good: allowing people to rediscover themselves, to remember what matters and ultimately, to connect with others. Richard Lane is not an exception but a truth: that excellent footballers exist outside the Premiership and with the right nurturing and pathway, they can come to the fore.

Should you witness him dance in for more tries in the coming months, remember that as well as crossing the whitewash in the Premiership, he also knows how to create a cracking raised bed in your back garden. In our minds, one of those things seems more impressive than the other. Rich knows it isn’t.

And back in Bedford, not far from where it all started, Howard Travis will continue to travel across the country to shout ‘Score!’ as the Blues fullback catches the ball. Not so much in hope but expectation. Richard Lane is responsible for that. And if there’s a better gift you could ever give someone, I’m not sure what that is.

Story by Sam Roberts

Pictures by  Richard Johnson

This extract was taken from issue 24 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.