Mark Cueto

Maximum stepped inside the England camp thanks to main sponsors O2, to have a chat with Mark Cueto, who was speaking on behalf of the England Rugby team.

Do you have any pre-match rituals?

How long have you got?! I always shave the day of the game, I eat the same pre-match meal, I’m the last off the coach, the last out the changing rooms. I put on my left sock and left boot first just to name a few!

It just becomes a routine, you find yourself planning your time on a match day. You plan your time back from the game and find a routine that you’re comfortable with and that makes you feel good. You tend to stick to it and it’s something that’s always worked for me really.

What’s the best prank that’s been pulled in the changing room?

The best prank pulled on me was someone put my car in the auto trader. I’d stitched some of the lads up on rugby club after I had been given the responsibility of showing the TV cameras around the changing room and I had set up a few pranks and stitched a few of the lads up so obviously when they watched rugby club that week they got a little bit annoyed with it and decided to stitch me up!

Two or three days later, we must have had a day off and I was coming off the golf course and literally had about 25-30 missed calls, so I listened to a few voicemails and they were all about my car being up for sale and all this sort of stuff but obviously my car had never been put on the autotrader! So I then got in touch with autotrader and explained the situation, and they wouldn’t take the advert out because it had been paid for by someone else and even though I explained it was a prank and it was my car they still wouldn’t take it off so I continued to get calls for a few days and the boys found it hilarious. It was a shocker!

What unusual talents do you have outside rugby?

Not so much no, I’m a pretty regular, boring guy I don’t get up to anything that different. A lot of spare time chilling out with the boys, playing a bit of golf and just relaxing so in terms of unusual talents there’s not a lot.

Who is your best friend in the squad?

The lads are all pretty close and 9 times out of 10 you go down and share a room with guys from your own club, like this week I’m sharing with Richard Wigglesworth, who’s up at sale with myself and he’s one of my best mates in the game. Aside from that, players obviously from other clubs people like Andy Goode is a good mate of mine as we’ve played together before. We’ve played England A and that was one of the first times we played together back in 2001 so we’ve known each other for a long time, so it’s always good meeting up with those sort of guys, like Andy and Paul Sackey, boys like that. They are mates outside the club environment, but when you get together with them it’s always good.

What do you always pack when you go away on tour?

I think one of the biggest things is a laptop in all honesty. The boys are pretty mad on carrying laptops for internet access, films and dvds and stuff like that. Particularly when on tour in a country where the TV’s not the best and you’re spending a lot of time in a hotel, a laptop comes in very handy.

World Cup or Lions Tour?

It’s difficult really. Everyone always talks about the Lions tour being the biggest thing in rugby with the history attached to it but from my personal experiences of both I’d have to go with the World Cup in 07. It was an absolutely unbelievable experience, literally a rollercoaster with some of the highest points in my career if not the highest and also some of the lowest points. So from that point of view I would definitely go with the World Cup.

But I think maybe if you spoke to some of the lads who have recently just got back from South Africa, the general feeling I get from those boys is that it was much more of a traditional Lions tour to the tour I went in 2005 to New Zealand, so maybe it depends on your personal experience really. To answer your question I’d definitely say the World Cup in 07 blew the Lions 05 tour out of the water.

What are your best memories of playing at Twickenham?

It’s just awesome every time you play there. We had a night with O2 earlier this week, where the whole squad had to go, with two players on a table split in to tables of 10 with two on each and one of the guys I was sat with was asking what your favourite stadium is and every day of the week I’d say Twickenham, especially now it’s been upgraded to 82,000. You’ve got all the other modern stadiums like the Millennium Stadium and Stade de France which are absolutely amazing and a great experience but you cant beat playing at Twickenham. You’ve got the whole stadium and the whole country behind you and 9 times out of 10 you’ve got a lot more people in the crowd that you know than in the other stadiums so it just makes it that little bit more special.

More about Mark

What size are your feet?

10.

Favourite film?

Wedding Crashers.

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Invisible

What three things would you take to a desert island?

Food, drink and the missus!

What would your ideal job be outside rugby?

Professional footballer

Interview by James Gordon.