There are not many players in Aviva Premiership Rugby who will this season be reflecting on an international victory over an Australian international team in Auckland, but Exeter Chiefs’ Chris Budgen is one.
The 38-year-old tighthead prop is more than just a stalwart of the Chiefs’ scrum. He is also a serving soldier and, last October, was a key part of the British Army team that won the International Defence Rugby Competition.
The event, which took place in Australia and New Zealand, brought together 12 military and police rugby teams both from established rugby playing nations and from further afield – the Chinese People’s Liberation Army fielded a team.
‘It was a pretty good event; especially as we won the championship and beat the Australian Defence Force 62-17 in the final,’ says Budgen, though he sportingly adds that the final result wasn’t really a fair reflection of the game or of the tournament.
‘There were some pretty hard games in there – we had a tough game against the Tonga Defence Services – we beat them 15-10 in the end – and there were other teams, like the New Zealand Defence Force and the Samoan police, who were also pretty good.’
He adds: ‘There are some good players in the British forces’ rugby teams. Some of them could play at least Championship rugby, no problem, particularly some of the Fijian and Tongan boys. In the Army team we also have [Captain] Mark Lee, who’s played for the Scotland 7s team.’
Losing a player for a month at the beginning of the season was not an ideal result for the Chiefs, especially as Budgen has more to his game than just the hard graft of scrum and lineout: he has scored 16 tries for the Chiefs since joining from Northampton Saints in 2008.
For Budgen, though, the occasional absence is another aspect to balancing the demands of rugby and his military career.
‘Is it an easy balance? Yes and not – but the Army lets me crack on with playing rugby.’
Budgen is a lance-corporal in the Second Battalion of the Royal Welch regiment, based at Tidworth in Wiltshire – where he also lives with his family.
‘We’re an armoured infantry and our job is to use the Warrior armoured vehicle in battle,’ he says. The Warrior is 25-tonne tracked personnel carrier, which has a crew of three, a 30mm cannon as main armament and is capable of transporting seven fully equipped infantry soldiers.
Budgen adds: ‘I’m a jack of all trades, really. I’m in the signal platoon at the moment. My boss runs all the battalion rugby and so he tends to look after the rugby players. As a battalion rugby is a big thing for us. We’ve been army champions for a while now.’
Born in Hamilton, New Zealand, in 1990 Budgen joined the NZ Defence Force where he served for five years. He moved to the UK in 1998 to play for Newbridge in Wales and soon afterwards joined the Royal Welsh.
He has served both in Iraq and in Afghanistan and is due to return to the latter with his battalion in 2013.
In the meantime, though, not only will he be doing what he does best for the Chiefs he will also be pulling on the Army rugby shirt again – in particular for the annual Army versus Navy game at Twickenham.
‘Those are usually pretty hard-fought affairs,’ he says. ‘There are no cheap shots or anything, but there are some solid hits made out there. It’s a big day out for people, too. Last year there were maybe 62,000 people at Twickenham for it. A lot of ex-service people come along and it’s a good day out.’
With Budgen in the opposing front row, one can’t help thinking the Navy might have a long afternoon.
The Army v Navy rugby match takes place at 3pm on 28 April 2012 at Twickenham
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