Greg Somerville: 'Tearing your retina can be a bit frustrating'

Greg Somerville can count on the cucumber-sized fingers of one hand the number of occasions he has been on the wrong end of a 40-point beating over the course of a long and spectacularly successful professional career. It may even be that an accurate calculation can be made on no fingers of no hands. All Blacks of the modern era – especially those who have the good fortune to play their domestic rugby in the great South Island province of Canterbury – do not concede anything like as many as 40 in a month, let alone in the space of a single afternoon.

Under the circumstances, then, the London Irish-Gloucester game five days before last Christmas came as a rude awakening to the 31-year-old New Zealander. A painful awakening, too. Not only did Somerville suffer a significant degree of embarrassment on his first full appearance for the West Country club, who lost 42-12, but he also suffered physically, finishing the match with a detached retina in his left eye. The last time someone received a welcome this warm, the King of Scotland was dining at the Macbeths'.

"It was a pretty disappointing start," Somerville acknowledged this week, in the low-key manner common to virtually every New Zealand prop in history. "I wasn't expecting the scoreline, for sure. As for the injury – well, I'd torn the retina in the other eye back in 2007, so to have this happen was a bit frustrating. It meant spending six weeks on the sidelines, just when I wanted to make my mark with a new team. They'd brought me in to make a contribution, not to sit around doing nothing."

If the contribution was a little late in coming, Gloucester have had little cause for complaint. Since returning in January, their prize capture has anchored the Cherry and White scrum with an authority that has earned him the immediate respect of a local cognoscenti raised on a red-meat diet of Mike Burton and Phil Blakeway, who knew a thing or two about life in the darkened recesses. He has turned a tight-head prop as good as Carlos Nieto into a bit-part player, hence the Italian's decision to join Saracens, and slammed the door completely on the promising Jack Forster. Needless to say, Forster has also pushed off, in the direction of Sale. Why stay? It is not as if Somerville has another retina to wreck.

Today, he goes – er – eyeball to eyeball with Gethin Jenkins of Cardiff Blues, one of the form props in world rugby, in the final of the Anglo-Welsh Cup at Twickenham. The two have met before, most notably in the last two Tests of the Lions series in New Zealand in 2005, which was not exactly a barrel of laughs from the tourists' point of view. Jenkins was some way short of his best on that trip: indeed, one Lions coach privately accused him of being a reluctant scrummager – something of a drawback for a front-rower, it has to be said. If he fails to scrummage this afternoon, the Welshman will find himself in all manner of strife.

The last final Somerville took part in was also the last game he played in his home country. "Canterbury against Wellington in the Air New Zealand Cup," he recalled. "We won 6-5. Or was it 7-6? Either way, it wasn't ideal stuff for the spectator." Hang on just a moment: when Leinster beat Harlequins 6-5 in last weekend's Heineken Cup quarter-final, it was an absolute belter. Surely he wasn't spinning that southern hemisphere "more tries the better" tripe? "I guess there's a bit of that mindset in me," he replied, combatively. "Greg, you're beginning to sound like John O'Neill," (the fast-talking chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, whose determination to make rugby less of a sport and more of an "entertainment" knows no bounds). That did the trick. "Jeez, I hope not," said Somerville, suddenly subdued.

Over the last 18 months, he has played the game he has loved since early childhood under three different sets of laws: the "old" set in force at the last World Cup, the Experimental Law Variations (southern hemisphere variety) and the Experimental Law Variations (northern hemisphere variety). Where does he stand on the issue of the moment?

"I'm confused," he replied. "I'm one of those blokes who has covered all the ground, and I'm praying that the next time the lawmakers meet, they settle on something and stick to it. I can see what people were trying to achieve with some of their changes, but rugby can't afford the disruption caused by constant tinkering. Speaking as a prop, I'm glad the maul will be back in the game next season. There's definitely a place for it, not least because it helps players like me get through a game. As for the rest, I'll be happy if they just make a decision and see it through."

Somerville is a North Islander from the top end of Hawke's Bay. Born in Wairoa, a town of fewer than 9,000 souls, he was a typical Kiwi rugby kid. "I loved it," he said. "I had a wee autograph book with a few good names in it, and I kept a scrapbook. It seems a little silly now, but that's what the game meant to us. My hero was Wayne Shelford [the fearsome No 8 who was part of the great World Cup-winning back row in 1987]. 'Buck' was a bloke who gave as good as he got – a bit more than he got, probably. He never lost a game as All Black captain, yet they got rid of him. I remember coming home from school, doing my chores and then hearing the news on the television. I couldn't believe it." During his teens, he made his first contact with Wayne Smith – one of the most effective coaches in world rugby, and by some distance the most popular. "I go back a long way with Wayne," he said. "He was at Hawke's Bay when I played in the age groups, he was the first to pick me for Canterbury when I went down south to study at university, he was the first to pick me for the All Blacks. He's as sincere and honest as they come, a real players' man. With Wayne, it's all about what's best for the team and for rugby. I don't have a bad word to say about him. I don't think anyone has."

His first Test, in Albany nine years ago, was a cakewalk: New Zealand 102 Tonga 0. "Was that the score? Well, I knew it wasn't 6-5," he said with a laugh. It would not always be so easy. Over the next three seasons leading into the 2003 World Cup in Australia, he made five starts against the Springboks, half a dozen against the Wallabies, four against the French, one against the hard-scrummaging Argentines and another against Martin Johnson's high-flying England. Then, in the global tournament, he played all but one match en route to the semi-finals, where New Zealand were beaten by the home nation in a match scarred by the breaking of the Wallaby prop Ben Darwin, whose career ended that night.

Darwin suffered a serious spinal injury at a scrum close to the Australian line. Somerville, packing down on the other side of the front row, knew something had gone badly wrong, but was unsure of the extent of the problem. "You just don't know when you're out there playing, do you?" he said. "It was a pretty bad night all round, that one, but the worst of it was Ben's injury. He had a big career ahead of him. To have it taken from you like that ... it's a terrible thing."

It was after the 2007 World Cup, in which Somerville played a less prominent part, that he first started wondering what rugby life in Europe might be like. "I knew I'd be leaving a lot behind in New Zealand, but my wife had never travelled much and we thought it was as good a time as any to look around a little, before the kids were settled into their education. Gloucester were the ones who showed an interest, and while settling in here has been a little more challenging than I anticipated, this is a good rugby city – probably as near to a rugby town back home as I'm likely to find.

"I'll be here for another two seasons. I haven't totally ruled out playing again when I return to New Zealand, but realistically, this is it for me. It's always been a tough sport, rugby, but the demands on people now are huge – especially up here, where the front-liners are expected to play so many games. By the time I finish at Gloucester I'll be 33. I think I'll have to make the most of what's left to me while I'm at Kingsholm.

"That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to playing at Twickenham this weekend. I've missed out on Test matches there more than once, thanks to injury, so I'll enjoy the occasion. It will be a hard old game, I'm sure: Cardiff Blues have big threats all through their team and they play for each other. But Gloucester are real strivers; they crave success. If I can help them achieve something, I'll be happy."