An independent interview states: “Clearly, Robinson can run rings round me theologically as effortlessly as he could with a rugby ball tucked under his arm. Interestingly, like other born-again Christians I have met, his usual level of eloquence, which on a scale of one to 10 is about five, increases to eight or nine when he is talking about his faith.
Certainly, the whole subject of his conversion, chronicled in his book, is a fascinating one. There was nothing very godly about his upbringing in a terraced street in a tough part of Leeds, nor about his early adulthood. He never knew his Jamaican father and frequently saw his Scottish mother being battered by his stepfather, Richard Robinson. Later, when his sublime athletic skills had propelled him to fame and fortune with Wigan, he drank heavily and meandered through a series of unsuccessful relationships with women, one of whom bore his child.
‘There were times,’ he tells me, ‘when I’d go out six nights a week, drinking vodka. When I split up with my girlfriend [Amanda, later to become his wife] after already having a kid with another girl, I admit that for a moment I thought about taking my own life. The funny thing was that on the field everything was going really well. But off it everything was out of control…
‘Then I met Va’aiga [‘Inga’] Tuigamala [the former All Black who had joined Wigan]. I used to just watch him. He had this smile from ear to ear, and seemed at peace with himself. I had all the things”
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