The 27-year-old flanker confounded expectations leaping from Durham university’s fourth XV to Prem rugby captain – don’t bet against his big England ambitions
At the start of every season for the past few years Fitz Harding has written down his goals for the next 12 months on the first page of a crisp new notebook. “You can probably guess what they are,” says Bristol’s impressive captain ahead of his team’s trip to Saracens this weekend. “I want to win the Prem, I want to play for England, I want to go to the World Cup.” He makes it sound almost matter of fact, like a list of basic groceries to be picked up on the way home.
The longer you spend with him, though, the more you wonder if those lofty ambitions may be realised. Not only is the 27-year-old Harding intelligent and personable but he is not the type to give up easily. Nor does he lack for motivation. “I don’t just want to be in England’s squad. I want to play for England. It sounds silly but just getting a phone call [ahead of the November Tests] wouldn’t mean very much to me. They’re not going to write in my obituary: ‘He made the England squad once.’”
True but a call-up would still rank as a hell of story. Only eight years ago the back-rower was playing in Durham University’s fourth XV, having previously failed to attract even a flicker of county age-group or academy recognition. He can still picture a particularly bleak playing field at the University of Liverpool – “Honestly, the pitch was more mud than anything else” – which could not have been further removed from the glamorous pro scene. He still keeps up with several of his fourth XV mates, none of whom imagined Harding would be where he is now. “I don’t think anyone really saw it coming. I didn’t see it coming.
“It’s so funny now because I’ll bump into someone and they’ll introduce me as ‘my teammate from Durham years ago’. And their friend will say: ‘Are you sure?’ I have such fond memories of those periods. Which is quite odd because, at the time, I was so frustrated I wasn’t playing in a better team. I’ve always been very competitive. Even when I wasn’t in those teams, I felt a drive to improve.”
In addition to giving hope to physical late developers and scrawny freshers everywhere, Harding – now 105kg and 6ft 2in – is also a prime example of the importance of retaining an open selectorial mind. Steve Borthwick already has plenty of established back-rowers ranging from Tom Curry and Henry Pollock to Ben Earl and Guy Pepper. How interesting, then, that Harding’s Bristol have already seen off Curry’s Sale and Pollock’s Northampton with Earl’s Sarries next up, followed by Stormers, Exeter, Leicester and Bath.
It is a heavy-duty sequence of games but if a coach wants someone with an insatiable work-rate who is utterly determined to reach the next level, the scrum cap-wearing Harding is that man. Bristol’s Pat Lam describes him as “a coach’s dream” and his fellow Bears forward Joe Batley is another admirer. “Fitz has been captain for the last few years and it doesn’t take much to see why when you watch what he puts his body through on the pitch. You want to follow him and back him up.”
Keep playing the way he is doing and, with Sam Underhill injured, the consistently effective Harding will become even harder to ignore, having already represented England A and the Barbarians. “I’m not necessarily X-Factor, I’m not like a Henry Pollock … someone who’s going to burst on the scene and go from being an unknown to the best player in the league. But I feel my biggest strength is that I’m tenacious. I’m also desperate to win. I might never achieve some of the goals I set out but it’s not going to stop me from trying and giving them a go.”
If the call ever comes Harding will certainly be ready. Perhaps the seminal moment in his career so far was when he came down to train with Bristol on trial and found himself rubbling shoulders with established Bears back-rowers such as Earl, Dan Thomas and Nathan Hughes. “When I first came to Bristol, I never thought I was going to play professional rugby. When I left university [in 2021] I very nearly just got a normal job because, in my head, the gap was so big. But within the first few months of arriving I was like: ‘Actually, the gap isn’t as big as I thought.’ I started to think that if I put everything into it I could achieve some of the things I dreamed of when I was a child.”
The club’s senior players subsequently urged Lam to give him a contract and he has not looked back. The next step is for he and Bristol to go to places like Saracens – the Bears have never won at the StoneX Stadium – and front up as effectively as Sale did last week. If that happens – “We can’t rest on our laurels” – the ball will be in Borthwick’s court. Aside from anything else, England could do with multiple leaders in their World Cup squad, particularly bright ones with a sense of perspective.
At university Harding chose to write his dissertation on the introduction of public street lighting in London and how it changed society. He is reading Fall of Civilisations – “It’s not a comedy” – by Paul Cooper and his three younger brothers, Dan, Alfie and Joe, are also a talented trio. One is in banking, another is in music production and two are scratch golfers. His father, Peter, meanwhile, has shown impressive career flexibility by swapping a top executive job with the Japanese drinks company Suntory for a new life as a yoga instructor while his mother, Mog, works for a number of charities.
For the moment, though, the top priority in Harding’s notebook – Fitz is a diminution of his middle name Fitzgerald – remains rugby. “I want to show that I can compete at the highest level and to do that you have to be playing in big games. I’ve got to make myself impossible not to pick. That’s been my aim for this season. I’m not ignorant to the fact Steve’s probably got his back-rowers in his head … he’s got to give the lads he’s picked a chance. But it’s not going to stop the way I approach the game or my determination. I think there’s still more in me.” From Durham Uni fourths to the World Cup? Don’t bet against him.
