Easter's Rising by Simon Easterby (Y Lolfa, £9.95) (From York Press)

Easter's Rising by Simon Easterby (Y Lolfa, £9.95)

9:43am Friday 30th December 2011 in Books By Steve Carroll, Sports reporter

STEVE CARROLL reviews the feisty autobiography of Simon Easterby.

A WARRIOR on the pitch – tough, defiant and a player renowned for his uncompromising attitude, Simon Easterby’s autobiography pulls no punches either.

Ireland’s most capped flanker, a legend at Llanelli Scarlets and one of the few players to come out of the miserable 2005 British Lions tour to New Zealand with his reputation actually enhanced, Easterby’s account breaks the mould of clichéd sporting autobiographies.

As brutally honest as one of his tackles, Easterby lays it on the line from the start – taking the reader through his childhood at Kirkby Grange, his schooldays at Ampleforth College (where he found rugby) and on his ascent to the top of the game via Harrogate and Leeds to Wales.

Days at Ampleforth loom large, two chapters devoted to his time as a boarder at the Catholic school and he admits he found it tough at the beginning. But, with his brother Guy, who would also play for Ireland at scrum-half, already there, he eventually settled and concludes that opportunity was what he gained most from his years there.

Riveting is the account of the Saturday afternoon ‘arrangement’ where all the local pubs around the school would be full of Ampleforth boys enjoying a pint. “I’m sure that the powers that be in the school had an agreement with the landlords so that this could happen.

“The rumour has it that they justified this by saying that you could have two pints if you bought a meal. We were supposed to stay there for a couple of hours but it was usually 5 or 6pm by the time some left,” Easterby writes before recounting a highly amusing tale of how he and another boy once left through the window of a pub and ran into woods as the police and monks arrived to break up a late-night lock in.

Easterby famously turned down Clive Woodwood and England in 2000 to play for Ireland and it was a decision that would see him play 65 times for the Emerald Isle, winning a Triple Crown in 2004, while also claiming the Welsh Cup and Celtic League in 180 appearances for the Scarlets, where he is now defence coach.

But this is as much a portrait of a man as it is a rugby player. He includes as many photographs of his family, and particularly his wedding, as he does of his exploits on the field. Well-written and packed full of anecdotes, it is a not-to-be-missed account of one of North Yorkshire’s greatest ever union stalwarts.