The Lions prop is just 30 but after a rest became retirement he has engaged with the push to make rugby a part of the States

'I can give back to America': Alex Corbisiero on NBC, the Premiership and never playing again

The Pig and Whistle calls itself New York’s premier rugby bar. The title might be contested but it’s certainly very rugby and very New York indeed.

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On West 36th Street, in the Garment District, it is surrounded by buzzing yellow cabs, hammering construction and yammering human traffic. Inside, the walls are lined with signed shirts; a print of Paul O’Connell winning a lineout looms over the long mahogany bar.

Alex Corbisiero, who meets me there with a crushing handshake, is also very New York and very rugby. Five years on from playing with O’Connell on the 2013 Lions tour of Australia, and scoring a try in the Sydney decider, he’s back in the city he left to become a prop who won 20 caps for England, the homeland of his mother.

At the end of 2015, Corbisiero was only 27. But he had been playing in the front row for seven punishing years. Beset by injury and fatigue, he announced a 12-month break from the game. But Northampton released him and rest became retirement. Now he’s turning 30 and though his family is still in Queens, he lives down south in Miami.

“I’m like a reverse snowbird,” he says, a reference to retirees who escape northern winters for life in the Florida sun. “But sometimes I feel old. That’s what happens when you play in the Premiership from bang on your 20th birthday.”

I’m happy with my body of work in rugby. I rode all sort of ups and downs and I’m able to finally let it go Alex Corbisiero

Corbisiero has spoken eloquently – to the Guardian’s Donald McRae among others – about the heavy toll of a pro rugby career, how the game is eating its own. Now, he says, “physically I feel pretty good. Do I feel my best ever, sort of Lions 2013 form? No. Do I feel good enough to play? Yes.”



But he won’t be doing so.



“I’m happy with my body of work in rugby. I rode all sort of ups and downs and I’m able to finally let it go.”

Of course, he hasn’t really. For one thing, he has spent two years as the face of NBC’s Premiership coverage, which means working with the former Bath No8 and USA captain Dan Lyle, a hero of an older generation who Corbisiero plausibly insists picked the teal polo shirts the two wore to the season launch in London.

For another thing, he’s started his own business, Team Corbs, working with Athletes USA to place American and international players at US colleges while offering scrum coaching to teams of every standard. He also had a hand in his former Saints and England team-mate Ben Foden signing for Rugby United New York, a team that will join Major League Rugby next year.



“It’s kind of been a transition,” he says, “instead of like a ‘flip the switch’ kind of move, because with the Premiership I spent a lot of time back in the UK. But now as we’ve had two seasons on NBC, more time here, I feel very settled.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Corbisiero scores against Australia for the Lions in Sydney in July 2013. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Corbisiero still sounds very English, very Surrey, where he played for London Irish. But when we discuss America, the land of his birth, for which he played junior rugby, he refers to “we” and “us”. Around the oval world the US has become a hot property, outside interests jostling with homegrown start-ups in attempts to grow the game. He has a personal stake in the gold rush.

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As we speak upstairs at the Pig, this dynamic is on display downstairs. MLR commissioner Dean Howes chats informally with two Kennedys, RUNY owner James and former Sale Sharks owner Brian, in town on non-rugby matters. MLR has finished one season, Seattle Seawolves the champions, and is due to expand in season two. Corbisiero expresses eagerness to help its players cope.

He’s also fizzingly enthusiastic about the new English season, which for American viewers begins with Bristol v Bath on NBC Sports Gold, its streaming service, on Friday. Boiled down, his take is that champions Saracens remain the team to beat at the top; Bristol’s big spending will make the bottom more crowded than usual; and it will be fascinating to see if Newcastle, who surprised many by making the playoffs last season, can repeat that feat or go further.

The biggest game on NBC’s calendar, he says, is Harlequins v Saracens on 6 October, which will be broadcast on network TV as executives look to lure back the 9 million Americans who watched the recent World Cup Sevens.

For the Premiership, the biggest game in America will be whichever is announced to follow Newcastle v Saracens at the Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pennsylvania, last year. Not many people turned up to watch that one and the response in some quarters in England was critical, bordering on outright glee. Corbisiero, like the league, speaks glowingly of the development work that was done.

“I love watching rugby,” he says, “analysing it, breaking it down. But it’s really that area where I fly in the elite-level expertise where I can especially give back to America. My goal long-term is that, to try and help spread my knowledge far and wide across this country, to really help us move forward in a rugby manner.”

Hence Team Corbs, and scrum clinics – preaching his own “eight-man system” – with the Houston Sabercats and the San Diego Legion, two of MLR’s original seven pro teams. Hence also a call the day after our interview in which he seeks to emphasise that growing rugby in America really is his mission.

Rugby in the US can be segmented and divided like anywhere and we need to work together as much as possible Alex Corbisiero

“I have a hashtag,” he says, from the train back south, “#noegosjustamigos, and that’s really just what it’s about. Rugby in the US can be segmented and divided like anywhere and we need to work together as much as possible, we need to share information if we’re going to build a game here: the Premiership, MLR, the colleges, USA Rugby. All of us.”

It’s a passionate plea, possibly a pre-emptive one given criticisms that will surely come when the Premiership announces its 2019 American game. That’s thought likely to be Sale v Harlequins on 6 April, possibly in Chicago, home of Gallagher, the insurance firm that now sponsors the league.

The passion is very Corbs. He’s always been driven off the field. On his way to becoming a Lion, No801, he completed a history degree. The hashtag is very Corbs too. It’s not something one could ever have said about Jason Leonard or Stack Stevens, glowering giants of England front rows past, but Corbisiero thrives on social media, deploying his fame for the good of the game. After our interview, he duly Instagrams a picture. At left, series-winning Lion. At right, sheepishly smiling hack who jumped up and down like a loon when Australia were beaten 2-1.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Corbisiero laughs with Mark McCall, head coach of Saracens. Photograph: Andrew Fosker/Seconds Left/REX/Shutterstock

We also discuss a tweeted video which has, in a way, gone viral. Earlier this month, Corbisiero was out on a date. Strolling in the Wynwood area of Miami – “like the art district”– he spotted a group of freestylers, rapping for tips on the sidewalk.

“I’d had a few drinks,” he says, grinning happily, “and ... I’ve rapped since I’m 13. It’s my creative space. Keeps my brain sharp, it’s fun, it’s creative, I enjoy it, it’s one of my passions.

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“And I listen and watch, throw some money in and eventually I was like, ‘Can I have a go?’ And then the girl I was with filmed it, I think she was thinking it was going to be an epic fail. I didn’t watch it until almost a week later and then finally I realised this is actually pretty good. So I posted it and now it’s got about 160,000 views on my Twitter. On Instagram, it’s probably at 50-odd thousand.”

Someone, somewhere, once tried say Corbisiero was an exponent of prop hop. In the England squad, by ritual, new caps must sing a song of their choosing. In 2011, after Italy were beaten 59-13 at Twickenham, Corbisiero found himself happily battered in the changing room, surrounded by World Cup winners: Martin Johnson, Mike Tindall, Steve Thompson, Jonny Wilkinson. A lesser soul might have wilted. He rose to the challenge with rhyme.

Seven years later, with a little light censorship, mindful of younger readers, some of his words on that Miami street corner sum up his larger-than-life character, his willingness to laugh, and his determination to see rugby succeed in the States.