‘Do I look like a porn star or do I look like a fat, retired rugby player watching daytime TV?’ says Joe Marler, lumbering onto a sofa and shuffling uncomfortably into a suggestive pose.
He raises one eyebrow for the camera, pouting and scrunching up his face. Anything but the ordinary. ‘I might have more time on my hands now but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start watching Married At First Sight,’ he adds.
We already know Marler is a master at working the room. He happily plays the fool, bumbling around in shorts and a Peaky Blinders-style flat cap on a cold autumnal evening.
But over the course of two hours, discussing the decision to call time on his England career, we see a different side. Watery eyes and words with more meaning than the easy gags.
There is plenty to cover – Donald Trump, Eddie Jones, Strictly Come Dancing – but let’s start with the night he told Steve Borthwick that it was time to call it a day.
Joe Marler is happy to play the fool but he made a serious announcement this week
Marler revealed his daughter Maggie (left) was in tears trying to convince him to retire
Marler sat down with Mail Sport’s Nik Simon (left) to talk all things from retirement to Donald Trump
‘I did the Girona training week – it’s lovely, Girona – but at the end of the last training session, knackered, I sat in the sun thinking, “I can’t do this anymore”,’ he says. ‘The game’s passed me by now, I can’t keep up. It was sad to admit. How long can you flog a dead horse?
‘On the Sunday night, when I went back into camp, I’d sort of made my mind up. It wasn’t a kneejerk thing. My daughter Maggie was crying her eyes out about me leaving asking, “Why do you have to keep going away?” and I was like “Awh, it’s my job”. It’s my job but there’s always a choice.
‘I had to go in and see Steve in person. I’ve got too much respect for the bloke to just call him up. I arrived in the nick of time for the team meeting. I got in and everyone’s sat down with their notebooks in their new purple England kit. I was dressed in the same clothes I’m wearing now and Elliot Daly comes up to me and says, “Fucking hell, what the hell do you look like, have you been out duck stalking?”
‘I sat down as they planned out the New Zealand week at the end and I just said to Steve, “Can I grab you for a minute?” We went down to the bar and spoke about it. He seemed shocked, gutted, but he understood that I’d given some thought to it. He came back with, “Do you not want one more game? One more against South Africa, you and Dan Cole”. There was three per cent of me in that moment that thought, “maybe”, but I’d made up my mind.
‘I went to the bedroom to see Coley and shouted up, “Are you decent?”. I just hugged him and started crying in his arms. That was the outpouring of emotion, the weight of it was just gone. I knew it was the right choice but there was a sadness. That was it. I was out of camp that night, back home about midnight. Back to normality.’
Normality in the Marler household is four kids, three dogs and a tortoise. The tortoise was supposed to be the size of a cereal bowl but he ordered the wrong breed and it will grow up to two-and-a-half feet. Once again, anything but the ordinary.
‘It was half-term so we booked a swimming pool for the night, although I can’t swim,’ he says. ‘It was the same pool where I nearly drowned when I took Jasper for a lesson with all the mums. They moved us down to the deep end and suddenly I can’t touch the floor anymore.
‘I’m starting to pull Jasper down because I can’t stay afloat. This time I stayed in the shallow end.’
The kitchen table has been the epicentre of activity. Arts and crafts, kinetic sand and homemade bracelets. It is also where Marler put out a clumsy-worded social media post about scrapping the Haka. It originated from his home in Sussex but caused offence in all corners of the rugby world. He was never going to go quietly, was he?
‘When I put that tweet out, stirring the pot, I hadn’t really considered the personal relationships I’d created with New Zealand rugby,’ he says. ‘There’s not many, but there’s a couple.
Joe Marler has opened up on why he retired and how he went about announcing his decision
Marler informed Steve Borthwick of his decision to retire at the end of England’s training camp in Girona
He then told his good friend Dan Cole (left), with the pair having played together for England for over a decade
‘I called Scott Robertson, the All Blacks coach, on the Thursday night before the game. I’d seen his interview on Sky Sports where he said I could have articulated it better. Scott was out for dinner but he picked up and I wanted to clear up some of the stuff. He was like, “Yeah, erm, mate”, and I said, “Look, I stand by it, I’d just like to see more teams going back at it, more drama, more entertainment in that 90-second window before the game”.
‘It created a story because this fat old retired player had culturally offended a nation. It was on talkSPORT. Then you get people thinking, “Maybe I’ll tune into this weekend to see what this haka is about”.
‘It’s all fun and games. The sport needs to learn a bit more about selling itself. Look at boxing; some of the trash talking Tyson Fury comes out with is ridiculous but it’s also great, because everyone talks about it. Eddie Hearn, love him or loathe him, knows how to sell a product.’
So is he proposing Hearn as the next CEO of the RFU? ‘Imagine that!’ he says. ‘Imagine. It will never happen, will it? There are too many custodians in rugby who would say that behaviour – like my behaviour, the UFC or NFL – is unbecoming or against the core rugby values. I understand that to a degree but if you’re serious about growing the sport then you’ve got to start thinking outside the box a bit more… let’s get Eddie Hearn in as CEO!’
We meet at Kennington Studios in London, where Marler records his podcast. It is often used to record news broadcasts and Donald Trump’s re-election as president is the hot topic of the week.
‘I can’t get my head around Trump.’ he says. ‘He’s convicted and he’s elected President for a second time. I don’t want to talk about it… we’re here to talk about retirement!’
Marler has walked away from the international stage with 95 caps across 12 years. Eddie Jones is the coach he spent the bulk of his time under and the Australian has been another divisive figure in the headlines this week. In his new book, Danny Care accused him of running a toxic environment at Twickenham but Marler has fonder memories.
‘Maaate!’ says Marler, mimicking Jones’ Australian accent. ‘I’d love to sit down with Eddie, the beaver. “Oi, Beav, how you doing, I know you’re getting a lot of heat, again, dragging things up, again, but fancy a little bottle of red?”
Marler and New Zealand head coach Scott Robertson shared a warm embrace last weekend after the England prop caused some offence with his comments on the Haka
Marler apologised for calling for the Haka to be ‘binned’ but stands by his view that the opposition should be allowed to respond to bring more drama to the sport
Marler wants more drama and entertainment in rugby, yet has admitted he can’t believe Donald Trump was re-elected as US president this week
‘I hope we’re still mates. I haven’t written a book slagging him off. That’s Danny’s interpretation of it but I’ve got a good relationship with Eddie.
‘There are certain things that Eddie got wrong, but there was a lot he got right. You can’t deny that he’s got the best win record of any England coach. Were there things he could have done better? Yes. Did I experience some of the stuff that’s being banded about? On the couple of occasions I did I stood my ground because I got to a point where I wasn’t scared.
‘It might have been something like a new kid coming into camp and he’d pick a nickname for him or maybe get his wrong. You know that he knows his name but you also know he’s trying to get a reaction out of the player so he knows more about him.
‘He’s almost looking for the player to turn around and say, “Mate, any chance of you getting off my back?” for him to know more about that character. That was his old-school way.
‘I can only speak about my personal experience with him and I’ve got very fond memories. There are still kids out there who need the stick and the carrot method. I probably needed someone with the stick, but not too much, otherwise I’d say, “Steady on with that stick or I’ll turn it around and use it on you…”’
He locks eyes, this time pulling a face of faux aggression. He shares a story about a night when Care fell through the fish tank at the Infernos nightclub in Clapham. There is plenty to reminisce about but Marler’s thoughts are more focussed on the future.
We look beyond this weekend’s Test against Australia, which he thinks will be closer than many are predicting.
‘How can I culturally offend the Wallabies? Is that not the angle you’re looking for?’ he jokes. ‘I like the Australians. They use some of my favourite words. Words I can’t use in this article.’
Marler has defended former England coach Eddie Jones following criticism of his coaching style
Danny Care made some eye-opening comments about Jones in his recent autobiography
His contract at Harlequins expires at the end of the season, then Marler’s playing days will be finished altogether.
‘The scariest part,’ he says, ‘is missing the camaraderie. But I haven’t had that at club level for a good two or three years now – a load of the boys retired or moved on – and I’ve sort of dealt with that.
‘For the last 17 years I’ve been told where to be, what time to be there, what to wear. It’s all planned out for you and your job is to just throw yourself into it. It’s something that pulls you back in when you’re feeling crap or going through a tough period. It stops your mind wondering.
‘It’s institutionalised into me so how do I create a life that gives me a purpose and something to get up for? A personal purpose that isn’t just providing for the family, raising the kids, trying to be a loving husband. If the next question is “Well what is it?” well I haven’t got a fucking clue yet.’
He adds: ‘It’s sometimes fun to think, “What would I have been if it wasn’t rugby?” Just before I went professional, I was turfing. Would I have worked my way up in that turfing company, of which there were only three people?
‘I now do podcasting – the Things People Do pod – because of rugby…. I only managed to branch out into it because of what the game has given me. As much as I have put two fingers up to the sport, several times, and gone against the grain, so many times, it’s also given me everything that I’ve got today. I’ll always be grateful for that.’
Those two fingered salutes have made Marler one of the game’s most fascinating characters. Rallying against the institution, breaking rugby’s down the barriers of toxic masculinity and using his own struggles to become the game’s biggest advocate for mental health.
‘There was probably a little bit of anarchy against a traditional class that I hadn’t been brought up in, wasn’t comfortable with and didn’t know a lot about,’ he explains. ‘A defence mechanism against not feeling like I belonged. I thought, “Everyone goes to private school” and I dreamt up in my head that they looked down on me and sneered about me so why don’t I amplify that by a thousand by dying every hair on my head and having this fake tough person that no one could get close to me?
‘You need to go through all the ups and down in life before you get to that point where you start doing stuff because it’s right for you and it’s right for the people that you love, instead of trying to be accepted or loved by people that don’t mean anything to you.’
From my own experiences of Marler – touring around Tokyo’s animal cafes and staying out late at industry events over the years – I would love to see him step into the wider public eye. Strictly Come Dancing?
‘Do you think I’d be any good on Strictly?’ he asks.
‘Yep,’ I say.
‘Why? Because you just want to mock the fact I’ve got no dance moves?’
‘I’ve seen you do a cartwheel.’
Marler would love to chance to go on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!
Marler’s former England team-mate James Haskell (left) claims he was badly edited on the show, but that hasn’t deterred Marler
‘There’s not enough room in here and I’ve got a dead arse. Would I do that stuff? Yeah I’d definitely do that stuff but it’s not a career is it? I’d do it as a fan of those shows and I’d do it for the desire I have to experience these things.
‘I’d love to go in the jungle. I’m a Celebrity; that’d be such great fun. Obviously, it comes with the risk that James Haskell experienced – or said he experienced – that he was edited badly. That’s why he came across so badly, because he was so hungry. Hmmm, yeah, it was definitely the edit!
‘The risk is you put yourself out there, outside the rugby bubble and you’ve got to realise there’s going to be loads of people that don’t like you.
‘Do I think I’d be good? You don’t know until you try it. I would probably be really bad at anything that involved confined spaces because I’m claustrophobic. The amount of drugs I’ve taken to knock me out to go into an MRI machine would knock out a decent-sized horse. Otherwise I have a panic attack, its bad. I once went into a giant MRI machine they use for the animals at London Zoo, shaped like a burger, but it was still quite close to my nose.’
And on that note, Marler checks his watch and realises he has to catch the late train back to Brighton. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been watching Married At First Sight,’ he says. ‘I’ve been watching Slow Horses. It’s on Apple TV. I can send you my login.’
