Dan Biggar reveals the Six Nations strike threat that nearly caused a civil war and his clash with Owen Farrell that left him disappointed with Warren Gatland

This week sees the release of former Wales fly-half and Mail Sport columnist Dan Biggar’s new autobiography The Biggar Picture.

In three exclusive segments, Biggar highlights some of the most notable moments from an extraordinary career.

How the clash with Farrell left me furious with Gatland

I was walking through the car park of the Vale Hotel on the Monday after our defeat to England in preparation for the 2023 World Cup when a journalist beckoned me over.

He asked if I had seen Warren Gatland’s column in the paper. I hadn’t. He frowned. We had squandered a 17-9 lead, even after England’s disciplinary implosion, which had left them down to 12 men. One of those receiving his marching orders was Owen Farrell, who was sent off for a high tackle on Taine Basham.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and saw that my wife Alex had already sent me the column. I started scrolling down and felt my heart rate quicken with anger. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. After Gats finished criticizing Owen’s tackling technique, he started yelling at me for confronting Faz on the field.

I had to stop myself from walking into his office to have a fight with him. Alex must have read my mind because a message popped up that said, “Don’t do anything you’ll regret now.”

It wasn’t until I saw Faz’s tackle on the big screen that I instinctively reacted and said, ‘F***ing hell’. Owen took offence and shouted back, ‘Stop whining’. I told him to fuck off and he marched over to me shouting, ‘What are you going to do about it, softie?’.

That was the point where it escalated and I said, ‘Who do you think you are, making fun of people all the time?’ I told him that just because his English mates didn’t have the balls to stand up to him, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t.

It wasn’t the most illuminating exchange, but he provoked it, not me. I have no problem with confrontations behind closed doors, but I don’t expect my national coach to smear me in the press, especially when I’ve done nothing wrong.

I had been given the task of writing a column myself, but I had given the WRU the right to veto anything they deemed unsuitable. In fact, they had asked me to remove a sentence mentioning Faz in which I had said ‘he is not God’, fearing it would be inflammatory.

I wondered out loud whether Gats’ column had been viewed with the same critical scrutiny, but deep down I knew that no one would have had the courage to challenge him.

You may think I’m exaggerating, but it would be unfair to pretend it didn’t hurt. It brought back the ghosts of 2015 when for whatever reason he couldn’t find it in himself to praise me. It felt like a calculated move, but I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish.

When the threat of a strike by the Six Nations nearly caused civil war in Wales

Tensions between the WRU hierarchy and the Wales squad reached boiling point midway through the 2023 Six Nations.

We had had enough of the contractual and financial uncertainty in the game. It was having a huge impact on us. We formally called a meeting with Nigel Walker, the interim CEO of WRU, to let him know that we were going on strike.

We told Nigel that unless we saw progress in the situation we would withdraw from the England match, which would cost the Union over £10 million in lost revenue. Nigel asked for more patience, but many of the lads had already given up that.

One was on antidepressants and the other had been refused a mortgage because of job insecurity. We told Nigel we were going to boycott the sponsors’ dinner. He told us that if we did that it would bring the game even closer to the brink of the abyss. I had imagined the strike would be quite theatrical, but the reality was not so dramatic.

We agreed that while striking was a last resort, we had to be prepared to follow through.

Nigel called another meeting. I interrupted him and said, ‘This is not a discussion, it’s an ultimatum. If our demands are not met by Wednesday, the match is off.’ Nigel is a pretty calm guy, but that just fueled his anger.

Gats had been taking a backseat the whole time. His position as a full-time employee of the WRU put him in a difficult position. There was a real edge to the training.

Every time Gats announced a tough exercise, someone would say, “I don’t like that. Should we strike for that?”

The sense of unity broke a little when we walked into the meeting where the team was announced. Gats announced curtly that he would not select it until later in the week. There was a lot of anger among the boys that night.

We felt that Gats had disrespected us and had sided with the union. The one time we needed his support, he had withdrawn it. I wasn’t the only one who was unimpressed. The more I thought about it, the more it hurt. It had taken us all by surprise. The outcome was incredibly disappointing, everything ended in a fudge. I was devastated.

My lion’s joy turned to despair

May 2021 was the month that turned my life upside down.

On May 6th I was selected for the Lions team to tour South Africa. Eleven days later my beloved mother Liz passed away. Never had joy turned to sadness and despair so quickly. My mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2004. She had lived with it for 17 years and had been so brave and stoic that you would hardly have noticed.

That’s why the ending was so hard to take. When I walked into the ward on the day the Lions selection was announced, her first words were, “Don’t even think about not going.”

I received many kind, thoughtful messages, but I will always remember the phone call from Alun Wyn Jones. My relationship with him is complicated, so it took a lot of courage to call instead of text. He had recently lost his father and knew how I would feel.

Everything that happened from that moment on was colored by my mother’s death. As proud as I was to be selected for the Lions, it paled in comparison to the sadness.

As we gathered for the first Test to hear Gats read out the team, I was overcome with fear. As I heard the words ‘Dan Biggar, Lions fly-half’ I closed my eyes and thought of Mum. How proud and emotional she would have been and how bittersweet it felt that I had achieved my dream and she was no longer there to share it with me.

As the South African national anthem was played, I stared at the vast emptiness of the stands and wished more than anything that my mother could have been there.

Inspired by Dan Biggar’s The Biggar Picture (Macmillan, £22), out on Thursday.

To order a copy for £19.80 visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Offer valid until 12th October 2024.