The Biggar Picture: The story of a Welsh rugby legend

Simon Thomas

Listening to Dan Biggar talk about his soon-to-be-published autobiography, it becomes clear that writing it has been something of a journey of self-discovery.

The whole process has given the former Wales fly-half and captain a fresh insight into both his remarkable rugby career and himself as a person.

This became obvious early in our conversation when I asked him what he had learned from putting together the neatly-titled ‘The Biggar Picture’.

“I am doing the audio book at the moment and, as I have been reading through it, I’ve been thinking how much I had to battle back from disappointments,” reveals the 34-year-old.

“If you think of someone with 112 caps, three Six Nations titles, three World Cups, Lions tours, etc etc, you always think there are no bad games or no bad moments in there.

“But the book is full of disappointments because that is what being a sportsman is.

“So I think it has given me an appreciation of how mentally tough I’ve been and how much resolve I had to find within myself during my career.

“There were a lot of tough moments, but I have found when I had those moments I always responded quite well. So that kind of filled me with quite a lot of pride.

“To come out the other side and still achieve what I have makes it a little bit more special.”

The other main conclusion Biggar has arrived at is he would haven’t changed too much of what he did along the way. Suitably enough for a man now based out in France with Toulon, the overriding message is ‘Je ne regrette rien’.

“Clearly, there are things in life which everyone would have chosen to have done differently,” he says.

“But, on the whole, looking back at the career, I don’t think there is much I would have changed.

“There are games like the World Cup semi-final against South Africa in 2019, the last ten minutes in Paris for the 2021 Grand Slam, a semi-final against Leicester in the Premiership with Northampton.

“I suppose there are moments which I would love to have back, knowing what I know now. That South Africa match in particular. If I could have had that day back, just a couple of moments in that game back, that would probably have been the big one.

“But there’s certainly nothing I would have done differently in terms of my character and personality, not really anything in terms of myself.”

Writing the book has also given Biggar the opportunity to reflect on what it was like being the Wales No 10 for so long, a role which is spotlighted and scrutinised like no other.

So, how did he deal with it all?

“Not easily at times, to be honest with you,” he replies.

“I’d like to think I’m quite a robust person and can take quite a bit.

“But, ultimately, you are a human being and at some point you are going to crack under the pressure a little bit and cave a little bit, especially the age and the world we live in now.

“It’s impossible not to see or read something or be told something by somebody.

“I did get far, far better at dealing with it as time went on, 100 per cent.

“When you are right at the start, you don’t really know what the pressure is and what it entails.

“Then, when you are in that 10-15 cap stage, you are fully appreciative of it and you’ve got a reputation to make and enhance.

“To be fair to Warren Gatland and Rob Howley, they backed me in that period. It took a lot of time for me to get in, but, once I was in, they really backed me and that made a difference.

“As a fly-half, you have to have authority and confidence and to give that off to the rest of the team. I always felt if you knew the jersey was yours and you were the number one, it was a little bit easier to go out and play your game.

“It made me almost not care what anybody on the outside was saying. I wasn’t really bothered about it because I knew I had the backing of the coaches.

“We were in an era when we were pretty damn successful for that 10-12 year period. When you play in big games and get success, that automatically gives you the confidence to brush any of the critics off, whereas if you are not winning championships and not winning those big games regularly, you maybe start to question yourself a little bit more and the pressure becomes even heavier.

“For me, the big thing was I was backed, which took a bit of pressure off and then I was able to deliver success for a period of time.

“So, even when there were doubters and haters or bad press, it gave me something to fall back on and just to say ‘Well, look at the stats, look at the record, look at what we’ve achieved’.

“I was able to brush it off and almost have a bit of a swagger about me.

“Towards the end, I really thrived on the pressure of the No 10 jersey and almost quite liked not playing well one week, to have to respond the next week.”

As for the high point of his career, working on the autobiography has confirmed his view that one game stands out above all others.

“The 2013 Six Nations decider against England when we won 30-3,” he declares.

“Of course, I realised how special it was at the time, but looking back that’s even more the case now.

“It was England coming to Cardiff for the Grand Slam, everything coming down to the final weekend. It was the crowd, the anthem, the whole of the city on that day. There are very few moments where you get all that. It was my first Six Nations trophy too.

“It just felt like an absolutely monumental moment in Welsh history. That moment will be talked about probably more so than the Ireland Grand Slam game of 2019.

“When I looked back at that England match, the build up, the tension, the result, it made me realise just how big it was and how amazing it was.

“The hour, hour and a half after that game, that’s pretty much the reason I became a professional rugby player. If you could replicate that and use it throughout your career, you would be doing all right. So that would be the high point.”

Yet, such are the ups and downs of rugby, that triumph was soon followed by the bitter blow of missing out on selection for the 2013 Lions tour of Australia.

“I speak quite a lot in the book about how much that hurt, being the only member of the 15 from the England game not to be picked after playing a pretty pivotal part in that Six Nations.

“They only took two fly-halves and then you see Stuart Hogg line up at 10 for a midweek game. “I’m not saying I would have been competing with Johnny Sexton for the Test spot because he was far ahead of anybody on that tour. It’s not like I am saying I would have displaced him if I had gone, but missing out altogether was hard to take.”

Biggar did receive the call for the next two Lions tours – New Zealand in 2017 and South Africa in 2021 – finally becoming a Test starter against the Springboks on the Covid-impacted ‘21 trip.

“It’s a real contrast as the 2017 tour was obviously a better one in terms of the classic Lions tour and what it entails and what it means to everyone.

“But missing out on Test selection made it a little bit tougher to take.

“The 2021 tour of South Africa was a pretty tough tour to be honest, with not much going on, but I was finally considered the best fly-half in Britain at the time.

“To achieve that was sort of a vindication and made up for what had happened before.

“Not making the 2013 tour and then having the disappointment of not figuring in the Tests in 2017, there was almost more pressure on me to become a Test Lion than the real enjoyment.

“Becoming a Test Lion was one thing I hadn’t achieved and it would have certainly left a bit of a hole on my CV.”

Biggar wrote the book in conjunction with TV presenter Ross Harries who had previously worked with Jamie Roberts and Adam Jones on their autobiographies.

“It wasn’t really something I had thought of doing, to be honest,” says the former Ospreys point machine.

“But I met Ross in a coffee shop in Cape Town in 2022, when Wales were on tour there, and he said he’d had an approach saying there would be interest.

“That was kind of an ego boost. If there was interest in it, that’s going to persuade you to do it a bit more.

“So there was that interest to start with and I suppose I have always wanted to have my say on my career.

“When you are not on social media, as I haven’t been pretty much all along, you tend not to have a voice or an opinion on things, unless it’s a pre or post-match interview.

“I kind of thought it would be nice to share my story on the Wales No 10 jersey, my career and just to be honest on things.

“I hope that comes across in the book. The first thing I said to Ross was I didn’t want to do a book just to make a few quid or create headlines or bash people or whatever.

“It was a case of wanting to have a voice on a lot of things through my career that perhaps people wouldn’t have heard from me on or known my side of.

“Above all, my aim was to be honest. Where there is praise to be given, I have certainly given it and where there were things I felt people could have done better, I have been honest on that as well.

“I really enjoyed the process in terms of talking through some moments, some games, remembering what the feeling was like after good times, bad times, personal life, ups and downs and things.

“I am really pleased with how the book has turned out. I feel it replicates me.”

The most challenging aspect was speaking about the death in 2021 of his mother Liz who had been such a huge part of his life.

“That was hard. It was a tough experience recalling that and going through it.

“It was a really tough time losing someone who was the closest person I had to me.

“Ross wanted to do that section face to face and my sister came over to France at the same time, as well.

“My mum passing away is a huge part of my life and we wanted to make sure we got it right. The book is basically written in her memory.”

As for the future, the man from Gorseinon is under contract for one more season at Toulon. Whether he will continue playing beyond that point remains up in the air.

“I feel like I’ve had a pretty good career and there’s not too much more to squeeze out,” he says.

“I am really enjoying doing things outside of rugby, in terms of the punditry stuff, media work and the corporate side of things. It’s just different ways of finding out different skills.

“I have lived my life by a schedule for the last 17, 18 years and it’s nice having a bit more freedom to pick and choose what I want to do.”

Biggar, who will be 35 next month, has settled in well on the French Riviera with his wife Alex and their two sons, aged six and two.

“We absolutely love living here and I don’t think we are ready to come home as a family, regardless of whether I continue to play or not.

“We are so happy here. My two young boys are hopefully going to be bilingual in the next 12 months, which is a huge advantage for them. The weather is amazing and the quality of life is incredible. So I don’t know.

“I still feel relatively good and we are gearing up for a big season with Toulon. But I think this year or next year potentially won’t be a million miles away and we will see what I want to do after that.

“I am certainly not going to be phoning round every club under the sun begging for a contract, that’s for sure.”

As our conversation reaches an end, he reflects finally on his much-anticipated book.

“It’s an honest assessment and, when you give one, you put yourself out there. Some people are going to like it and agree with you, some people are going to dislike it and not agree with you.

“But the only thing I care about is that I am being honest and upfront. I can hand on heart say the book is an honest reflection of what’s happened in my career and my life and hopefully it comes across like that and comes across well.”

The Biggar Picture: My Life In Rugby is published by Macmillan on September 26