Retiring Biggar targets family time over full coaching role

Dan Biggar says spending time with his young family will be his priority after retiring from playing

Dan Biggar has ruled out moving into coaching full time in the immediate future when he retires as a player at the end of the season.

The 35-year-old former British and Irish Lions and Wales fly-half will finish his 18-year career at French club Toulon, who he joined in November 2022.

The former Ospreys and Northampton Saints player is open to the possibility of a part-time consultancy role, but in the meantime will content himself with media work and being able to spend more time with his family.

"I think initially I'm feeling quite excited... for the last 18 or 19 years I've been told I've got to be in this place and doing this exercise, or this meeting or whatever it is. I've been told what to wear, what time to get on a bus, what time to get on a 'plane," Biggar said, speaking on The Phone In on BBC Radio Wales

"We've never been able to just book something in advance, so my wife asked me the other day can we take the kids to Disneyland around Halloween. So without even thinking I said, 'Yeah let's book it now, let's do it'. That's kind of the first time in 19 years I've been able to do that.

"I think clearly the novelty of that will eventually wear off, I think I'm going to have to have some sort of routine but I think it's nice. I need routine in my life but given also how much routine I have had, it will be nice to have some freedom with that.

"If I want to go and play golf on a Wednesday afternoon, or if I want to take the kids away for a weekend and things like that, it still gives me that freedom.

"So I'm not sure exactly what the future holds for me, media bits and pieces, some stuff like that. Hopefully we're going to stay living in France, which will be great for the kids with the whole lifestyle, and we'll just take it from there.

"I would love to do coaching and the media route, for anyone who does media, is the easier route than coaching. You're sitting there watching it with cameras and slo-mo; since I've retired I've never made a mistake for Wales! You become the perfect player, you say 'I wouldn't have done that, or that'.

"So I'm not saying for one minute it's the easier route, I've got so much time for the coaches and things. But what I don't want to give after 18-19 years in the game, is I don't want to be giving up the time that coaches in the professional game - particularly at club level - have to give.

"If you're a player you switch off when you get in your car and go home for the night. Coaches don't do that, coaches are there every weekend, every night on the laptop. If someone said to me you could coach from eight o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon Monday to Friday I'd probably snap your hand off, but I know that just isn't good enough to get it done to a level I wanted, and it's just not achievable in the modern day.

"I'd love to be able to help out in some way, in terms of whether it's a consultancy role a couple of days a week or whatever, but the full-time coaching is probably a little bit beyond what I'm prepared to give from a time point of view."

Biggar began his rugby career at Gorseinon RFC and went on to play for Swansea RFC, Ospreys and English side Northampton before joining Toulon in November 2022, and he will finish his career with the French powerhouses at the end of the season.

The 35-year-old won 112 caps for Wales in an international career spanning 15 years, which included two British and Irish Lions tours on which he made three Test appearances in South Africa in 2021.

He scored more than 600 Test points, won three Six Nations titles and a Grand Slam with Wales and also captained his country. His final international appearance was at the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Time to 'give back' to family

Like his former Wales captain Sam Warburton (L), Dan Biggar has already moved into media work

Biggar admits that the decision to retire is one that has been on his mind for some time.

"I didn't just wake up one morning and think 'you know what, today is the day (to retire)'," he said.

"I think after the (2023) World Cup, I think my whole career had been based on playing to the highest level, whether that was Wales, the Lions, World Cups etc.

"When I finished with Wales 18 months ago after the World Cup it was kind of like at the minute you were just going from week to week and you realise how nice it is being at home a bit more.

"And things haven't quite gone as well as I would have liked this year in terms of playing-wise in Toulon, I'm coming towards the end, and I just thought well why not get out ahead of it a little bit and make the decision myself.

"It just felt like the time was right from a family perspective, from a playing perspective and from what I've got going on off the field it just felt like the right time, and time to give back a little bit, a bit of time back to my family as well.

"The thing I'm most proud of in my career - because it is a job at the end of the day, people sometimes forget it's a job - is being able to give my kids and my wife, I suppose, a great opportunity in life.

"That was probably something that when I was younger I could never have dreamed of for them, so that was a big influence in it and you don't realise how much it affects your kids, your wife and people closest to you.

"Because they're the ones who have to pick the pieces up when things are difficult, when you don't want to go out for dinner, out of your front door - you come home in a bad mood or you're injured or whatever it is.

"They have to miss out on so much and for me I just thought this is the time now when we're young, we're healthy, we're able to do loads of things, give the kids opportunities, and it just felt like it was right to give some of my time back to them, because they've given everything of theirs to me over the last six or seven years that we've had kids and my wife for the previous 18."

Stand-out win 'will be talked about'

Over his stellar career, Biggar picks out the 2013 Six Nations win over England as his highlight, a game in which Wales inflicted a record 30-3 defeat on their Grand Slam-chasing opponents and seized the championship from them in the final round of games.

"I've been asked this a few times over probably the last 18 months or so... 2013 when we had the (Six Nations) championship decider against England was probably the best moment for me, because I feel it's something that people will talk about that game in five, 10, 15, 20 years' time, a bit like the 2005 game where Wales won the Grand Slam," Biggar said.

"It was a perfect day - England coming for the Grand Slam, the roof shut, atmosphere incredible, going for the championship. I suppose everything just fell into place that day and I've heard people describe it as 'the perfect day'.

"Certainly from a players' perspective it couldn't have been any better really; to have played a huge part in that and been successful to have picked up a trophy at the end of it... is special."

Goal-kicking and the 'Biggar boogie'

Dan Biggar's kicking routine and accuracy made him one of the standout fly-halves of his generation

Biggar made his Ospreys debut in 2008 and during an 11-year spell made 221 appearances and scored 2,203 points, making him the region's record points scorer, while he also collected more than 600 Test points, the model of a metronomic kicker.

"People think when you're kicking at goal and people nail big kicks, and being able to do that for large periods of their career, you always think that people don't feel nerves, or the emotion, don't feel the pressure," Biggar said.

"That couldn't be further from it. You're aware of the situation, the scenario, you're aware of the facts if you miss. But in that moment there (the winning penalty kick in the 2015 World Cup pool game that saw Wales beat England 28-25) I was in such a groove, such a zone where I didn't really feel like I was missing.

"Goal-kicking is 95% in the head, 5% is technical and for me it's always about just trying to make sure I gave myself the best chance, get as good a contact on the ball as possible and try and take the situation out of it - whether you're 30 points up or it's a kick to win the game, you want to try and hit the ball the same either way.

"I've always tried to do that, sometimes it's worked. Thankfully in 2015 it worked very well, and that's one of the best ones (memories) as well to be fair to go with 2013."

As well as his accuracy with the boot, Biggar was noted for what became his trademark fidgety pre-kick routine that some have dubbed 'the Biggar boogie'.

"I was kind of thrust into the limelight being Wales' frontline kicker in that (2015 World Cup) tournament and we'd just been to Qatar for a training camp in July, which was rather hot and sweaty and uncomfortable," explained Biggar.

"So I kind of just felt myself a little more fidgety and aware of all the sweat and the heat and things like that, and it just transformed back into London and Cardiff. I didn't realise I was doing that until I came back into the team room on Monday morning and the boys were just chucking all the videos onto YouTube.

"I'm just so glad I was able to be successful doing that, because if I'd missed four or five from seven and did that I think I'd have taken a fair bit more stick as well."