Glad I took Dad's advice not to quit

AS a teenager, I was told I was too small to play rugby (I’m 5ft 8), and that I would never make it to the top. So, when I look back on a career that saw me win 55 Argentina caps, play at three World Cups and professionally in England and France, I’m very proud of what I achieved.

- Jon Newcombe

I have a lot to thank my father for. I was doubting myself and thinking about giving up when the ‘growth spurt’ never materialised but he told me to remember that not everything in life is easy, sometimes you need to redouble your efforts. So, instead of going out to the pub with my mates, I worked on maximising my strengths, and thankfully, the hard work paid off.

In 1992, I made my debut for the San Isidro club, in Buenos Aires, aged 18. We had an incredible team with a lot of Pumas who I’d grown up watching. To show the quality we had, many of my team-mates had been in the side that drew with the touring Australians in 1987.

Playing for the Pumas looks quite an impossible task when you’re a kid, especially one as small as me, but suddenly you are playing for the first XV of your club, then you are called up to play for the Buenos Aires XV and then the national team. Before I knew it, I was on the plane to South Africa for the 1995 World Cup.

I’d made my debut against Uruguay only a couple of months earlier, so it was very unexpected. I was very young and didn’t know what was going on in South Africa or how big a deal it was for them to host the competition.

I was like a kid in Disneyland. Suddenly I was in a World Cup with all my idols. All the players of all the teams had a lunch together and I had my photo taken with Will Carling, Jeremy Guscott, Serge Blanco, Tim Horan, Scott Hastings, Philippe Sella, and David Campese…all my idols, all guys I had watched in 1987 and 1991 and I wanted a memento! I didn’t care how it made me look.