Wales star Lewis looking for the recipe for success

Simon Thomas

Dillon Lewis is a man seeking the recipe for success both on and off the field.

On the rugby front, he is aiming to establish himself as first choice for both Harlequins and Wales after a frustrating few months.

Then, away from the game, he has employed his culinary skills in producing a cookery book along with his girlfriend. More on that later.

After last year’s World Cup, it looked as though the opportunity was there for Lewis to finally become Wales’ number one tighthead prop, with the player he had frequently provided bench back-up to – Tomas Francis – out of the equation following a move to France.

But, far from making the starting line-up, he didn’t even make the squad for the Six Nations.

So, what was the explanation for his omission from Warren Gatland and Co?

Scrummaging

“With me, the narrative has always been ‘You do a load around the park, but your scrummaging is not good enough’,” said the 28-year-old Pontypridd product.

“Then, this last campaign, the narrative almost flipped where it was ‘You’re not doing enough around the field for us to pick you’.

“That’s something I’ve almost built my game and my career around, so it was quite frustrating to hear.

“My reply was if you hear X amount of times the reason you are not getting picked is because you are not good enough at scrummaging, then it’s hard not to throw all your eggs into one basket after a certain period of time and just really try and hone in on improving that one aspect which you are told will get you picked as first choice.

“The part of the game I always loved and enjoyed was around the field, carrying, tackling, getting over the ball. That was what was getting me picked initially for Wales.

“But I have never been someone’s first choice, so my thought process was this is the feedback I am getting about my scrummaging, so this is what I need to improve on.

“Plus, the English Premiership starts and ends with set-piece really. If you’ve got a good scrum, a good lineout, it goes a long way to winning games.

“So there’s not many better leagues to be in to try and improve that aspect of my game and I felt like I was improving in my set piece last season, but I was maybe neglecting around the field a little bit.

“So I can appreciate what the Wales coaches were saying about me not doing as much around the park, but my priority was getting better at set-piece and making sure ‘Quins had a solid platform to play off.”

Called up

As fate would have it, Lewis was called up to the national squad after Leon Brown was injured in the Championship opener and ended up figuring in three matches, starting against Italy.

He was then selected for the summer tour of Australia, but wasn’t to get on the field Down Under due to an ongoing back issue, which saw spasms followed by nerve problems.

“I hadn’t really had a rest period to let it settle down and it’s something that just didn’t go away,” he explained.

“The medical team made the call that it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do to put me into a game of rugby.

“It was frustrating because I would have loved to have contributed on the field and helped the team out in a positive way, but the cards just fell that I wasn’t able to do that.

“You go out there to play rugby and I wasn’t able to. So it was quite a frustrating summer.”

Off the bench

Since making his Wales debut in 2017, former Cardiff prop Lewis has won 57 caps, but 35 of them have come off the bench.

“There was a period under Wayne Pivac where I was given the No 3 jersey and thought I had gone quite well,” he says.

“It was probably some of the better rugby I had played in a long time.

“Then, obviously, the Pivac era ended, Gats came back in and I was back to battling it out for second choice.

“I will be the first to hold my hand up and say I haven’t been consistent enough to warrant being that out and out first choice. I’ve always given question marks.

“I feel like a lot of frustrations have surrounded the Welsh jersey and Cardiff.”

That feeling contributed to Lewis deciding to end his nine-year stay at the Arms Park and move to Harlequins last summer.

“I felt like I wasn’t developing or going forward as a rugby player,” he said.

“I would be given a small opportunity and then it would be gone, so I felt like it was the right time for me to leave and try and improve elsewhere.

“I loved my time at Cardiff, it was fantastic. But there were quite a lot of ups and downs for me personally and as a team.

“We were finishing seventh, eighth most years and it just became a habit really.

“I wanted to try and kick on. There was still a lot of improvement in me.

“I was quite frustrated with where I was with my game and how I had progressed or not progressed, so I thought a new challenge, get out of my comfort zone of Cardiff.

“I just felt like it was time for me to leave that environment and try something different.

“Where I was in my career, it was something I needed to do, to have a change.

“Fortunately for me, Quins came along and I have loved it here. The boys are fantastic. It has been a class first year.”

Pontypridd

He continued: “It’s a little bit different to Pontypridd up here!

“We lived in Twickenham last year so we were in and amongst the Stoop and in the mix of it. It has been cool getting to experience London.

“But the rugby side of it is the bit I have enjoyed the most.

“Obviously, Adam Jones being here was huge for me. I really wanted to kick on with my scrummaging and he has been fantastic with me.

“We work very closely together. There is always feedback and always things he thinks I can do better and he’s always helping me

“He has been massive and I’m also back working with Danny Wilson again, which I have loved. He is a very detailed coach and very clear on what he wants, while Nick Evans has been fantastic in attack.

“It’s just different voices and opinions. I do feel that has helped my game a lot.

“I had lived in the same place for 20 odd years and had the same routines for nine, 10 years at Cardiff.

“From Ponty to London is quite a change. It’s a new level of independence.

“I feel like I have grown as a player and as a person. It’s been a breath of fresh air really.

“It was definitely time for me to leave and try something new.”

Intense

Lewis made 18 appearances for ‘Quins last season, including five starts, as he experienced a new competition.

“The Premiership is very different to the URC,” he said.

“Every game means something, every game sort of feels like a final.

“If you look at the league last season, it was so tight up until the last week where there were six or seven teams that could have finished in the top four.

“It was a whole different experience to what I had known in club rugby before and I really enjoyed it.

“It was intense, but it was bloody good.”

He also has plenty of familiar faces around him, with fellow Welsh internationals Leigh Halfpenny, Jarrod Evans and Wyn Jones as team-mates.

“They just keep signing them! I think Bomb (Adam Jones) felt lonely, so he has managed to convince them to sign a few Welshies!

“It’s great to have a few familiar faces here. They have all settled in great and the boys love them.”

Happily, Lewis is now over his back problems and straining at the leash to get out on the pitch again.

“Everything is feeling far better now. The body is feeling fresh, I am feeling strong and ready to go,” he says.

“I just needed that break away from rugby to let everything calm back down and reset.

“The rest period has done it the world of good.

“I am back in full training and knocking on the door to be involved as soon as possible.

“I am excited for this season now. It’s a big year for me.

“Will Collier left the club at the end of last season, so the fight for the No 3 jersey is on.

“My priority starts with getting picked and playing well for ‘Quins. You would like to think if I can do those two things, Welsh honours will follow.”

Tighthead contest

Looking at the Wales tighthead contest, he said: “It’s wide open.

“Leon Brown is back fit now which is good to see. I am good friends with him and hopefully he can stay fit because he can be brilliant.

“Archie Griffin had a great summer in Australia. He was chucked in at the deep end, but stood up to it and was very good. I was very impressed by him.

“So I think there will be a bit of a fight for that No 3 jersey come the autumn and the Six Nations and hopefully I am in the race for it.

“I’ve still got big aspirations to make that Wales jersey mine.

“It’s just a case of having a better understanding now of what it is exactly they are looking for and hopefully I can try and put that on the field for the ‘Quins.”

So does he know what that is?

“I had conversations with Gats and the other coaches through the Six Nations and the summer and I think what they are looking for is a more rounded game,” he replies.

“More of my old self with the improved scrummaging, I guess is what you can say.”

Frustration

Lewis added: “My frustration is I have never really been someone’s first choice tight head, so to speak.

“That’s a big goal I have set myself going forward to really put my foot forward to be first choice tight head and let my rugby do the talking.

“I am hoping, as soon as I do get going, to stay injury free and try and get into that Welsh team.”

Away from rugby, Lewis used to have a coffee business – Fat Dragon – with his former Cardiff propping pal Brad Thyer, but now he has a new venture.

“I wrote a recipe book with my girlfriend, Sophie, over the summer!” he declares.

“Of all the things I didn’t think I would be doing, that would be one of them.

“It’s based around the AIP auto immune protocol diet.

“Sophie has got endometriosis and suffers from pain, bloating and loads of different things because of it, so she tested out this AIP diet to see if it would benefit her and her results were quite astonishing.

“Her pain more or less disappeared, her bloating was gone and she felt way better in herself.

“She is very public about it all and is doing really well on social media, with around 300,000 followers off the back of this diet. She vlogs her day to day progress and her results.”

So, along came the idea to do a recipe book.

“It’s a very restricted diet,” explains Lewis.

“You can’t drink coffee and there’s just a long list of things you can’t eat, no black pepper, no chillis, no peppers, no grains, no seeds, no breads.

“So we had to get quite creative with it.

“I am the chef in the house, so we made a recipe book out of all the meals I cooked while she was on the diet. There are about 80 odd recipes.

“We started selling it as a digital e-book over the summer, which is quite cool.”

Lewis, who is now living in Walton-on-Thames, added: “It’s an interesting diet. It was quite funny really. I started doing the diet with her and I lost about 5 kilos in the space of two weeks, so I quickly had to stop doing it.”

Now restored to his prime weight, he is aiming to cook up a storm for both club and country.