Jamie Peacock: ‘I wanted to win for my father. I want him to remember me in the best possible way’

THERE’S an irony which doesn’t go unnoticed by Jamie Peacock as he selects The Arc in Headingley as a suitable meeting place.

The north Leeds bar is one of several stop-off points on the Otley run pub crawl where, just five days before we grab lunch, Sale Sharks pin-up Danny Cipriani was knocked down by a bus.

It’s just the kind of misadventure which is, often disproportionately, associated with rugby players. It’s also the sort of image which Peacock would like to dispel.

“That sort of thing makes me cringe,” says Peacock. “It ruins it for the rest of us. In my mind, you have to try and curb it if you’re in the public eye.

“That said, Cipriani’s only young, but you have to learn. In any walk of life you’re always going to have some people who don’t know how to behave when they’ve had a drink, who can’t handle it. Rugby’s no different.

“The difference is that if you’re a well-known rugby player then you’re misbehaving in public.”

This judgment is delivered with more of a tone of disappointment than outright disapproval. After all, Peacock will freely admit that he would often spend entire weekends drinking, sometimes spending 20 hours boozing while he was trying to establish his rugby career. Some of it, he willingly concedes, contributed to his mixed fortunes on the pitch.

But at the age of 35, he’s now emerged from the rollercoaster years boasting a staggering list of achievements, among them an MBE for services to rugby league not to mention the pride of captaining the Great Britain rugby team.

But it’s the idolising he now experiences in Leeds, the city where the Bramley lad was born and brought up, which is truly outstanding. And after seven years with the Rhinos, the oldest member of the team is delivering some of the best performances of his career – but it isn’t just down to maturity and experience.

In November 2011, his father, Darryl, 59, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and given months to live.

“He’s still here, though,” says Peacock. “He’s in a wheelchair now but he doesn’t moan he just cracks on with it and suffers in silence. Still, if he makes it to Christmas he’ll be doing well.

“It was hard at first, but it pulls you together as a family and it has made me want to play better because I think there won’t be many more times he’ll get to see me play. And he does still come to watch me play when he can.

“He’s not the sort of man to tell me he’s proud, but when I played in my first Challenge Cup Final I know he was in the crowd and he was in tears – that’s enough for me.

“So last season was a big focus for me. The team knew about my dad as well and they really rallied around. I thought it might have been the last season (he’d see me play) and I really wanted to win the final for him. I think his illness is one of the reasons I’m playing so well, without a doubt. I just want him to remember me in the best possible way.”

Family life has done much to soften a man who, at 6ft 3ins and 16 stones, couldn’t be described as anything but intimidating. Euphemistically he says: “You have to have an edge on the pitch, but you can’t be like that in everyday life.”

The rage he was once notorious for seems to have been, in part, negated by compassion and caring, both sad and joyous.

Getting married to 38-year-old Faye and having three children has seen his life and his character completely change.

Although rival players feel menaced by the icy Peacock stare, he melts in the presence of his four-year-old daughter, Lilly.

“She is such a girly girl, so kicking a ball around is just so alien to her. You have to sit down and do girly things with her – colouring in, stickers, that kind of stuff. And that’s great, there’s nothing more I like than seeing them doing stuff they enjoy, and enjoying it with them.

“But I refuse to do the really girly stuff like painting toenails,” he laughs. “She knows there’s a line that can’t be crossed.”

In fact, Peacock’s whole world view has changed since becoming a husband and father. He doesn’t care what his kids do when they grow up, so long as they do it to the best of their ability. Although his eight-year-old son, Lewis, plays rugby and football now, he was once into dance when he was very young - and Peacock didn’t care a jot.

He says he wouldn’t mind if Lewis wanted to be a ballet dancer – the one thing he probably doesn’t want him to be is a rugby player. “It’s too hard,” he says “Plus, he’d always be the son of Jamie Peacock. But if that’s what he wants to do then fine.”

Although the Peacock family home in Calverley is just a few miles from the terraced streets of Bramley where he grew up, he wants a very different life for Lewis, Lilly and their youngest, two-year-old Freya.

He wants them to have the education and options he feels he was denied when he was a pupil at Intake High, a school which focused on performing arts. It was never going to appeal to a future rugby legend whose strong points were science and maths.

And the young Peacock had potential. At one stage his family discussed getting him a scholarship to Bradford Grammar School but, like most boys in his neighbourhood, sport trumped studying every time.

His youthful, boyish reluctance is something he seems to regret now, but he’s making up for it. He says he has a “huge thirst for knowledge” and constantly reads. Peacock is, he insists, a secret geek too.

“I’ve no problems admitting that either,” he laughs “I find meteorology and astrology fascinating and in another life perhaps I’d have liked to have done that sort of thing. I’m more BBC2 than BBC1 or ITV, put it that way. I think it’s great how people like Brian Cox have brought all that back to the popular market and being a geek is quite cool and acceptable now.”

After an hour in his company, you realise there’s a surprising array of subjects which interest Peacock. But anyone who’s watched his career will know he’s never been afraid to speak his mind either – he’s not even afraid to discuss politics.

“I like the Leeds MP Greg Mulholland because he’s in politics, I think, to do the right thing. I wish there were more people like Greg around who want to make a real change.

“I can’t stand Ed Balls. Everything that’s bad about a politician, every stereotype, he sums it up. He’s a loud mouth who just shouts rhetoric all the time and doesn’t really come up with any policies. He just seems more self-interested than anything else.

“I vote for the Tories because I like The Big Society idea. That’s the right thing to do. Most people really do care about other people, but they need the right environment to do it properly.

“But some of the stuff Labour came out with towards the end 
of their reign - they were 
spending something like four pounds for every three they were bringing in.

“I can’t cope with Labour at the moment because they don’t have a credible alternative to 
the current government. And 
I’m not blinkered by parties, I just vote for what I think is the right thing to do for society at any given time.”

Less surprising is the fact that Peacock is now considering his future after leaving the pitch as 
a rugby player. With his last 
game imminent within the next two or three years, he’s adding to his existing qualifications in a bid to enter a new career in some form of administration. And he doesn’t care if that involves a job in sport, let alone rugby or rugby league.

In fact, you get the distinct impression that life has put 
rugby into perspective for Peacock – something many younger and less wise sportsmen have yet to realise.

“Rugby is just a game,” he laughs “You’re not discovering a cure for cancer. It’s just a game. And it’s a game I just happened to fall into – but it shouldn’t have been that way. I can’t help but wonder how my life might have turned out if I had gone down another career path or maybe studied harder at school. The one thing I have learnt is that there’s so much more to life than rugby.”

Jamie Peacock: life and career

Born: December 14, 1977 in Bramley. He now lives in Calverley, Leeds.

Family: Wife, Faye, 38. Children, Lewis, 8, Lilly, 4, and Freya, 2.

Career: Bradford Bulls (1999-2005); Leeds Rhinos (2006-present); England/Great Britain (2000-2012)

Qualifications: He is currently studying for a MA Sports Business and Administration.

Honours: MBE for services to rugby league (2012); Superleague player of the year (2002).