- White has been granted special release to play for his province against the Lions
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Nic White springs out of the barber’s chair, moustache freshly groomed like a Victorian strongman.
‘You’re up next!’ he barks at me, pointing towards the red leather seat. Shaking off any loose hairs, the 5ft 9in scrum-half gives a few instructions to the stylist. ‘Let’s get a slug on his face!’
The chair is cranked backwards and the clippers buzz into action. ‘By the end of the tour, you’ll be looking like me, just a few feet taller,’ he says. ‘Mine’s been growing since 2017. I shaved it to go to Bath Races looking like Arthur Shelby (from Peaky Blinders) and it’s stuck around.’
White visits the Guru barber in the Perth suburbs before every big game. This weekend’s will be one of the biggest of the lot. It brings a sense of nostalgia for the man who was part of Exeter’s glory years, before the lure of playing for the Wallabies pulled him home in 2020.
‘I remember an interview we did at my home in Exeter. I was giving out about Saracens breaking the salary cap. Turns out I was right!
‘These days I share a room with big Will Skelton in the Wallaby camp. It’s an unusual dynamic because he’s about 6ft 8in. I figured they put us together so I can go in the trundle and he can have both beds! Will likes to kindly remind me of those titles he won when Saracens beat us in the final and I like to remind him that they are, in fact, mine!’
One of rugby’s great characters, White laughs it off now. Instead, the 35-year-old talks about having two sons born in England and the friends he made. A WhatsApp group with the likes of Jack Nowell, Gareth Steenson and the Simmonds brothers, Sam and Joe, is still active.
He asks how the tour is going so far, picking up on Mail Sport’s visit to the Pinnacles Desert on Tuesday. ‘I took the boys (his kids who are six, four and two) down there. We saw an emu and before I knew it they were chasing this emu across the Pinnacles. The emu was legging it. They’re little yappers that run around like native beasts.
‘I’ve asked the boys if they’d rather play for Australia or England and they say the Wallabies, so we’re all good.
‘I do miss the UK. I loved Exeter. We’d just bought a house there and I was about to sign on for four more years. I was so nervous when I went in to tell Rob Baxter I was going back to play for the Wallabies and he just gave me a hug and said, “Mate, this is what we want”.
‘Native beast’ could also describe White’s demeanour on the rugby pitch. A chippy No 9, he has spent his career getting under opposition skin and this weekend he will be doing exactly that for the Western Force. One of the few players who has been granted special release by Joe Schmidt to play for his province against the Lions, he could end up facing the tourists for club and country.
‘I hope Mack Hansen’s playing so I can get into him,’ he says. ‘We played together in Canberra. He was a kid trying to get into the team who played a bit of reserve 10, 15 and not a whole lot of wing.
‘He came up to me before he left for Ireland and said, “Should I sign?”. I said, “Mate, you’ve got to jump at it”. He was well and truly in his comfort zone in Canberra and I told him he could always come back. He went to Connacht and hasn’t looked back.
‘I know first-hand how hard it is to move overseas. You’re in the prime of your life, mid-20s, and it’s a tough ask to go and commit to a different country.
‘It’s rugby now. Here we’ve got Fijians, Tongans. It’s the multi-cultural nature of life now. There’s no question of their commitment, but it’s also fun to take the mick that the Lions need 10 Southern Hemisphere players. It’s good that we’re able to prop you guys up! A few Aussies, big Duhan van der Merwe, a couple of Kiwis, they’ll pick anyone at the moment, won’t they!’
No one is safe from White’s verbals. As the barber ploughs through my beard, White puts on his best American accent for a Ron Burgundy impression from Anchorman: ‘Who put a question mark in the teleprompter!’
Occasionally twizzling his moustache, White talks about how he knows the end is coming. Days like this will not be around for much longer as he approaches what could be his final season.
‘I’ve signed on to play six more months of Super Rugby next year, so I’ll empty the tank and then I’ll make the call if that’s the end. I imagine it probably will be.
‘I’d love to play against (Jamison) Gibson-Park,’ he adds. ‘We’ve got great history from when he played for the Blues, in New Zealand! He’s worked really hard for everything he’s got and for me he’s the best No 9 around.
‘As an out and out nine, he’s probably better than Antoine Dupont. Antoine’s a different beast, the best player in the world hands down, but I almost don’t know what he is. He really suits that French set-up and he’s a different type of nine, with all that ability, his running game, his support game, his strength, kicking off both feet.
‘But, when it comes to the traditional role of a nine, Gibson-Park’s speed to the breakdown is far quicker than Antoine’s. His service off the ground and his ability to add to the team play is better. Antoine has a highlight reel, but Jamison’s interplay as a nine is almost Aaron Smith-esque. I definitely want to get his Lions shirt. It will be one to cherish, for sure.’
Over the next few weeks, Australia will become the epicentre of the rugby world. The sport has struggled here in recent years, with the short Eddie Jones stint leaving scorched earth after a disastrous 2023 World Cup.
‘This tour is huge for us, for a whole host of reasons,’ explains White. ‘We need this tour and we need to do well in it. In 2022, we were playing some good footy and sold out every Test match. That series against England went down to the wire and then 2023 happened. Let’s just not talk about it.
‘It was a blip, but Joe Schmidt’s done an outstanding job in a short space of time.
‘We’ve started to build some trust back. We haven’t won back the complete trust of our fans, but it’s building. For rugby in Australia, we haven’t had a big event like this for a while. It’s a big responsibility and 60,000 Brits will come down.
‘“Lions! Lions! Lions!”, I’ll be sick of hearing that in six weeks’ time!’
As the barber applies a splash of aftershave, White has one final crack. ‘You’ve gone from a four to a six out of 10! Are you single? It’s what the people want. You’d better keep it for the Test matches! I’ll be keeping an eye out!’
