Named in the Dream Team? Happy days...

It was only when my mate Norm introduced me to rugby that I first became properly aware of the sport as none of my family had played. I started boxing for a bit, but my great grandad didn’t want me to do it, so my Mum pulled the plug on that; I played football but I wasn’t very good, as I was quite clumsy as a kid, whereas rugby suited me much better, especially as I was a big boy.

- LEON BROWN

I was in a small-sized man’s shirt when I was six years old! I was quick too, mind, so I wasn’t a prop from the word go, I played inside centre, back row, and it wasn’t until I was 13/14 that I switched to the front row.

At first, I didn’t have a clue how to scrummage and I reckon it was only when I was left out of Wales’ 2019 World Cup squad, in my early 20s, that I fully recognised how important that side of the game was and I needed to knuckle down and get better at it if I wanted to fulfil my potential. Beforehand, I had seen it as something I had to do, and I was a bit of a liability in terms of the amount of penalties I gave away.

To be fair, I didn’t have the easiest of starts. My debut for the Dragons was Leicester away in the LV= Cup in November 2016. Craig Mitchell started at tight-head against Marcos Ayerza, but he came off after 30-35 minutes, so I came on for my debut and found myself up against one of the best scrummaging props in the world. And then, when Ayerza went off, Ellis Genge came on, and we all know how good a player he’s gone on to be. I ended up getting a yellow card near the end of the game, for repeated scrum infringements.

And I got another yellow card for the same reason in my third game, against Worcester, when I was up against Val Rapava-Ruskin, another unbelievable scrummager. I remember our hooker, Rhys Buckley, turned to me and said, ‘what are you going to do?’ I was kind of thinking I'd messed this up but I was young and didn’t dwell on it too much, I don’t think.