Biography
Part of the England squad that took the country to victory in the 2003 World Cup, Matt Dawson is an institution in the world of rugby. He is immediately recognisable as team captain on BBC’s ‘A Question of Sport’ as well as a rugby commentator for the BBC and Radio 5Live.
With 77 caps under his belt, he is England’s most capped scrum half, captaining the side 9 times. He played for Northampton and the London Wasps as well as England, and represented the British & Irish Lions on three tours. During the 1998 tour to Australia and New Zealand - ‘The Tour from Hell’ - Matt was congratulated on his leadership. He also captained the England Rugby team to win the Six Nations Championships in 2000.
Regarded as one of the more outspoken players, Matt Dawson is a favourite with the BBC’s rugby coverage and has had substantial experience in written journalism. Matt appears regularly as a studio guest on BBC Grandstand, and writes a column in the Daily Telegraph - which generated considerable notoriety during the Lions Tour to Australia in the summer of 2001.
Matt is a big sports fan (he runs an online sport memorabilia company) and is a motivating influence in the corporate world - he contributes to corporate conferences, strategy meetings and change seminars with lessons from the world of sport in general and his own experiences in top class rugby.
After playing wicket keeper for Buckinghamshire at school level and attending trials with Chelsea boys, Matt opted to apply his talents to rugby union when he moved from home in Marlow to Northampton in 1991. He is an accomplished golfer (current handicap of 12) and likes nothing better than a free summer to appear regularly for the Bunbury Cricket team.
Matt enjoys presenting the lessons he has learned from rugby and they can be applied to most sports, and individual approaches to physical and mental training as well as development of career and personal life. Together with leading management consultants, Matt develops relevant presentations in his own style, equally effective at large team building exercises at a sales conference to strategic retreats and change management sessions.
Matt learned leadership lessons the hard way during his time as England captain on the “Tour of Hell" in 1998, when an under-strength England party took on the best three teams in the world on consecutive weeks.
Matt was granted a benefit year by his club with events running from November 2003 through to the summer of 2004.
These days Matt is a television personality; His position on ‘A Question of Sport’ has elevated him from a well-known rugby player to a national TV personality. In 2006 he took part in the BBC’s ‘Celebrity Masterchef’ and won. Matt then put on his dancing shoes to become the runner up in the BBC’s primetime programme ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, which attracted over 12 million viewers per show.
More recently Matt presented his own cookery show ‘Mitch & Matt’s Big Fish’ for
UKTV Food. Alongside chef Mitch Tonks, Matt toured the UK’s coastline whilst creating
tasty dishes along the way.
Matt is a proud patron of the charity Beating Bowel Cancer, a charity that works hard to raise awareness of a cancer that kills 50 people every day, with the under 35's worst hit.
An excerpt from one of Matt’s presentations:
“We were initially stunned by the severity of our 76-0 defeat by Australia, the prevailing tour attitude had been upbeat and confident until then and the Wallabies served us a big dose of reality: we were unable to compete in any department on the field."
"After that defeat a totally different approach was required if we were to retain some pride in our two performances against the All Blacks and then the Springboks. We had to change our attitude to our rugby to face the physical reality. We focused on achievable goals, to start winning or at least reach parity with our opposition in certain areas of play, to stay-in games to retain the opportunity of winning. The mood in the touring squad from every member became much more blunt and honest: it was going to be very, very hard work…"
Matt tailors his presentations for different team and corporate scenarios, working with clients to achieve the goals and objectives of strategy meetings, seminars and conferences.
To book Matt Dawson for your event, please call Parliament on
+44 (0) 1202 24 24 24
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