Lebron James’ recovery routine helping Sale Sharks’ Bevan Rodd take his rugby to next level

When Bevan Rodd ran out for his 100^th appearance in Sale Sharks’ 27-24 victory over Northampton Saints three weeks ago, perhaps a few eyebrows were raised inquisitively in the Salford Community Stadium – surely he has more? After all, he has been a first team regular for five years now, despite being aged just 24. 

His tender age, should it not have been part of a prominent narrative in Sale’s Premiership final run in 2022/23, might also have deceived a few. Before the emergence of young props in starting XVs across the league, and indeed England contention, with Rodd’s club mate Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Harlequins’ Fin Baxter, and Gloucester’s Afo Fasogbon, Rodd was an outlier. 

However, that wealth of experience, at his age, in a position that requires more immediate maturity than most, is why Rodd can keep such a level head off the back of what has been an unquestionably difficult nine months. Seen as Joe Marler’s likely successor, Rodd was withdrawn for the veteran after 43 minutes in a big opportunity vs Japan last summer, before being bumped down the pecking order below Fin Baxter and enduring a difficult cameo in the second test vs New Zealand. 

That increased the significance of Sale’s first match of this season, then, for Rodd, given Sale were welcoming Harlequins, and Baxter, to the North on a typically wet, set-pieceprimed day. Rodd was named man of the match in a performance that demonstrated his all-court ability, with Sale winning five scrum penalties on course to a 12-11 victory. 

“By his own admission he didn’t give the best of himself in the summer”, says his Director of Rugby, Alex Sanderson. “Then he was injured in that Quins game, so Fin Baxter stayed in. Bevan is a phenomenal player. The fact he looks 34 and he is only 24 goes against him sometimes. He has got a long, long road ahead of him.”

Sanderson’s own quotes about Rodd after that Harlequins game prompted a collection of headlines entitling him ‘Bevan Rodd 2.0’ owing to his step away from being a “social animal”, but on reflection now, he thinks that rhetoric was doing the seven-cap prop a disservice. 

“Lots of people say they’ve curved their social activities, they’re not going on the piss, but that’s probably a given. Bev’s doing that but extra, he’s doing everything he can. We’ve probably got to protect him from himself a bit, because it can be to the detriment to his own body, he’s in that Tom Curry mould. 

“An example is the Toulouse week [where Rodd was a late injury withdrawal]. He’s had a bit of a dodgy back, as a lot of props do, which is stiffest in the morning. Because of how he presented for his ‘MOT’ at 8am, the medics said they weren’t sure. So Bevan starts getting up at 5am, having a nap in his own hyperbaric chamber, then goes to the country club for a sauna, hot and cold baths, and a stretch, just so he can pass the MOT and train.”

Whilst Rodd’s status as a “social animal” may have been addressed amidst his struggles around the periphery of the England matchday 23, his commitment to going above and beyond stretches back to a career-threatening injury in his first year as a professional. 

Aged 19, the Scottish born, Isle of Man raised prop sheared his femur but was lucky enough to find a suitable donor for a transplant. Having sought out help from expert performance and recovery specialist company 10XPR, Rodd was told to knuckle down on recovery or risk early retirement. The obsession with recovery has become a habit ever since. 

“I chipped my femur in my first year, and didn’t recover well”, recalls Rodd. “It was that 18-year-old arrogance where you’re like ‘oh I’ll recover from this, sweet’, then do it again. 

“I was doing research and found that NFL and NBA players were using hyperbaric chambers [tents that increase oxygen levels] a lot, then I saw Lebron James using one, and thought ‘if he’s using it, then it’s got to be f**king good hasn’t it’”. 

On crutches and in the middle of lockdown, Rodd rented his own chamber and moved back in with his parents to install it. In the early days his dad had to lift him into the chamber given the injury, but he has since bought one for his own home and wakes up early every day before training to spend over an hour with increased oxygen into his body, as well as spending over an hour in there before bed. 

That goes on top of the consistent extras he works on through each week: daily hand-eye drills he works through with Sale’s academy manager Fergus Mulchrone, offloading and ball skills on a Monday, individual defensive work on a Tuesday with Byron McGuigan and, of course, as much scrum work as possible.  

There’s been just one break in that cycle over the last five years, says Rodd. “I found with that femur injury that I was weeks ahead of where I was meant to be, so then have just kept on doing it. 

“Funnily enough my chamber broke just before the Quins game. I’ve never had a muscle injury, then that Quins game when I didn’t have it, I did my hamstring. I don’t know if that’s purely down to the hyperbaric, but it definitely helps.

“I did consider the England stuff with Fin before that Quins game, but at the end of the day if I play badly and Sale win then I’ll take it, that matters more. It’s a good challenge, he’s a really good player, so is Gengey.” 

As a result of that injury, Ellis Genge and Baxter played through the Autumn and Six Nations, with Rodd the spare man during England’s successful Six Nations campaign, playing Premiership Rugby Cup games in fallow weeks at his own request. 

“I do think he deserves more caps”, says Sanderson. “But I think the England management should be commended for backing someone. I spoke to Steve [Borthwick] about it, he had his shot vs Japan and New Zealand and didn’t play as well as he wanted to, and that leaves a little bit of a stain in the coaches’ mind selection-wise.”

“I’ve not really reflected on it”, says Rodd. “I’ve had a debrief with my family, my partner, although she doesn’t really like talking rugby! You know the situation you’re in, you’re very close, just not getting picked. 

“However, we came second [in the Six Nations], and I’ve been in enough where I do feel part of it. It’s annoying, and I do want to play, but as a group I feel like we proved a lot of people wrong. I’ve had to learn that role in itself, but there comes a point where it’s like ‘let’s play’. 

“It’s a challenging environment but they’re giving me constant work ons, and tell me the positives. They like my fitness levels, my tackling, my aggression in the scrum. Sometimes probably chasing too much in the scrum, giving away penalties, so I’m working on that”.

“It’s always scrum first. Props – scrum first”.

In the end, it all circles back to scrums. “It’s always scrum first. Props – scrum first”. It’s where you get a real insight into Rodd’s self-critical and unflinchingly humble nature…

Ask about his audacious outside break and try vs Newcastle, he’ll tell you that it’s because Max Clark, the centre he rounded, is so good at hitting front on. Forcing Frans Malherbe into the sin bin through scrummaging: it was an off-day, how about a poor day of his own vs La Rochelle’s Uini Atonio and Will Skelton as a 110kg 20-year-old. When forced to answer questions about his own quality, his answers invariably circle back to his “scarily good” clubmate Opoku-Fordjour. 

That is something he is actively working on: 

“People love focusing on negative stuff, I do myself, but all that matters is whether you have your own self-belief,” he said. “After La Rochelle, I lost a bit and it affected me massively. Everyone says don’t get too high on the highs, don’t get too low on the lows, so it’s just managing that, but I could name you five bad games instead of five of my best. I’ve been working with a psychologist, and I feel like I know my process now with the scrum. 

“Everything’s come together for me with it; that doesn’t mean I’ve completed scrums, but I know my setup, feel confident in my own ability. It’s hard to tell when exactly it clicked because, especially when I was younger and was going well, I had the La Rochelle game and I know people didn’t expect me to do great, but it still rocks your confidence. 

“I was annoyed at myself because everyone would’ve said ‘he’s international ready’, but I didn’t prove it. You always remember your bad games, like Dan Cole got on top of me once so I’d have gone into England camp and spoken to him – I speak to him a lot because I reckon he’s done about 3000 scrums including training, so it’s good to hear what he likes to do against me.

“But as soon as you nail down the processes, and it takes a while, then you just try to rinse and repeat”. 

So there’s that mental clarity. Nightmare games, steady off-pitch habits and learning experiences at the very top level means Rodd is in the midst of taking his game to the next level. For Sale, and for Alex Sanderson, it’s timely as they stage another end-of-season play-off push:

“Like most real good players, he’s a character. His own conviction sometimes wins over common sense, and in terms of decision making he can be relatively belligerent. I see that as a trait to encourage, because it’s those kinds of characters that win you games. 

“He’s so sure of his convictions that can be too aggressive in a scrum, or see a breakdown opportunity and goes for it against policy. But you’d rather that than a ‘you say jump, they say how high’ character – f**k that, you want people to make good decisions off their own volition, like Bev.”