International Rugby News launches a new weekly question and answer session with the biggest names in the sport and kicks off by catching up with in-form Leicester Tigers fly-half Andy Goode, who reveals his love for 50 Cent, Coventry City FC and dunking biscuits in his coffee.

Hello Andy, you must be pretty pleased with your form this season?

Yeah, the big thing for me is that Marcelo Loffreda has come in and instilled a lot of confidence in me by picking me week in and week out. We have a massively competitive squad at Leicester with 45 players and that is probably the biggest in the Premiership. But he keeps picking me on a regular basis which allows you, as a fly-half, to get into a groove and that gives you a massive amount of confidence.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve been performing pretty well recently. As it’s a long season there are times when you need rotating in and out and resting but this year I’ve played 18 or 19 games and it’s been a good season for me. We now need to make a final push and win the trophies we won last year.

How have things been with the change of management at the club?

Obviously when a new coach comes in there are different methods of coaching and Marcelo has ideas about how he wants us to play the game. Every coach is different. It was tough for Marcelo because he had been at the World Cup with Argentina and we were a third of the way through the season at Leicester so he couldn’t re-invent the wheel.
He just added a few bits and bobs because he didn’t have a preseason to work with us. It has been good in terms of him not making massive changes but he is drip-feeding things in slowly and we went back to basics at the beginning. He is a big believer in doing the simple things well and then elaborate after that.
We were in a tough Heineken Cup group that he fell straight into as a coach and we came out on the wrong end of that. But we’re in a good position in the Premiership and in the semi-finals of the EDF Cup and we’re looking for a big finish with Marcelo leading the way.

Has the team been pleased with its form this year? As you mention, the Heineken Cup exit was a disappointment.

At Leicester we are a club that pride ourselves on competing in every competition we are in. We were massively disappointed at getting knocked out at the group stages of the European Cup because that has not happened to us for a long time. You’re judged on how well you do in the Heineken Cup.
The way the groups were, Wasps and us were in the final last year and we had the two toughest pools. So you’ve seen teams come through to the knockout stages who have never been there before. We were dealt a tough hand but we still should have come out of our group into the quarter-finals but we didn’t play to our potential and we’re disappointed.
But with that competition gone it re-focuses the mind on the other two. We have been going reasonably well in the Premiership. We’re a confident squad but this period during the Six Nations is always a challenge. It’s time for our strength in depth to pull through and come the end of the Six Nations, we hope to push on and finish in the top two.

You talk about regrets. Any regrets over your choice of facial hair earlier this season?

A lot of the guys did it but myself and Geordan Murphy looked the most ridiculous. If it raises as much awareness and money as possible for Matt Hampson, I don’t mind looking a plonker.
Matt is dear to our hearts. He is a team-mate of ours and he always will be. It was a thing aimed at raising the awareness of spinal injuries and the dangers of not having enough insurance to cover you for the rest of your life.
If it got the message out, then great. My daughter was quite disappointed when I shaved it off at the end because she was used to it. It was a bit of a fun. Myself and Geordan did look quite strange but it was all for a good cause.

What is the best thing about life in professional rugby?

Good question. The best thing for me was growing up and playing rugby as a hobby. I can remember starting out as a five-year-old and there were thousands of kids out there playing for their clubs at weekends. The best thing about being professional is that your job is something you did as a hobby when you were younger. You’re getting paid to do something you love.
Winning trophies is brilliant and we all play to do as well as you can in your career but the be all and end all is turning a hobby into a profession and it’s a privilege to be paid to do it.

And the worst thing?

There is not a feeling like losing. We lost the Heineken Cup Final last year and I’ve never seen such a deflated changing room in all my life. I would also say a contact session on a wet Tuesday afternoon with big guys like Alex Tuilagi and Seru Rabeni running at you all day long, those are some dark times. Sometimes those sessions are enjoyable but quite often they hurt just a little too much.
There are positives and negatives in every job you do but the positives of being a professional rugby player far out-weigh the negatives.

What do you think you would be doing if you weren’t playing rugby?

I would like to think I would be a cricketer because I got offered a contract for Warwickshire when I was 16. I used to play with a young chap called Ian Bell, who has now gone on to play for England quite a bit.
Would I have made it, I don’t know. But I would have given it a good go but if it hadn’t been rugby or cricket, I probably would have been an accountant or something boring like that.

What would you put in a rugby Room 101? What do you want to see banished from the game forever?

Those contact sessions on wet Tuesday afternoons (laughs all round). Or how about mindless hill running in the preseason? You get to the bottom of the hill and you know you’ve got to do it and you look over and see the fitness guy is keen as mustard to get you running up and down. I always look at him and say, ‘I’ve never played on a rugby pitch that has a hill like this.’ You have to question why you do it. It’s not the most enjoyable thing to do but it’s all part of being a player. And those Tuesday afternoons when it’s pouring down with rain and you’ve got big brutes tearing at you.

If International Rugby News could send you anywhere in the world (which we’re not, by the way) where would you go?

It would be America. I spent four weeks in California in the summer, I’ve got family out in Tampa and I just love the place. I would like to go and live in Malibu so if you could send me there, that would be fantastic. Thanks very much!

What was the last book you read?

I’ve just finished reading a book called Yes Man by Danny Wallace. It was basically about a guy who gets stick off all his friends for turning down invites to everything so, for a year, he promises to say yes to absolutely everything for a year. He does that but it takes him to some strange places. That was good. I’ve just started reading a book called 21 which is about college kids who put a few scams on some casinos in America.

Do you have any nicknames?

The Bear is my main one. Stuart Barnes called me it once while he was commentating on a game and it sort of stuck ever since. So much so that the manufacturer of my kicking tee now puts it on there, which is pretty funny.

What is the best dressing room prank you have ever witnessed?

The one that sticks in my mind the most is going back seven or eight years, when Austin Healey had a running feud with Steve Booth. Austin had this superstition where he would always eat popcorn the night before a game so he would either go to the cinema to watch a film or just drive to the cinema to get some popcorn and then go home.
Austin was at the cinema one night with his Missus and he had just been given a new Mercedes from his sponsor. Steve was also at the cinema but Austin didn’t know he was there. Steve saw Austin’s car so he went and got cans and cans of shaving foam and covered Austin’s new car in it.
The next day, Austin got wind that it was Boothy and decided to, for want of a better word, do a number two in his shoe. Austin took Boothy’s shoe before the game, did what he needed to do in it and left it there for the whole game.
Another superstition of Austin’s was that he had a certain lucky t-shirt that he always wore during warm-ups. After the game, Boothy went to put his shoes on, saw what had happened and decided to clean his shoe out with Austin’s lucky t-shirt.
Austin took great exception to this, put Boothy in a sleeper hold and was about five seconds from knocking him unconscious on the dressing room floor. It was not so much a changing room prank but more of a feud that got out of hand
Currently at Leicester, Lewis Moody is our favourite target. For one of the most fearless, ferocious players on the pitch who will tackle anything and put his body on the line, he is like a little girl when it comes to spiders.
We’ve got this game going on at the moment where we find spiders at home, bring them in and throw them at him. He runs around the changing room like a little girl – it’s brilliant. If you ever see Lewis, wherever you are, grab a spider and throw it at him – you’ve never seen anything like it.

If you could have three fantasy dinner guests, who would it be?

50 Cent because he has always got something to say and I’m into his music so it would be great to hear his take on things. There has to be one from the football world in there and being a massive Coventry City fan I would say John Sillett - the one and only manager to win silverware at Coventry.

We can’t see him having a jam session with 50 Cent.

No, you’re probably right. But I’m just trying to cover all my interests. I would also really like to get under the skin of Bill Clinton just to know what exactly went on. I don’t think the conversation would be flowing between all three of them but I could talk to each of them individually. I admit it is a strange mix.

(Editor’s Note… A few minutes after completing this interview, Tap and Go received a text message from Andy Goode, who insisted he wanted to bump John Sillett from his dinner guest list in favour of Jennifer Aniston (fair enough). But we felt sorry for the lovable old Coventry City boss so granted Goode an extra guest at the dinner table. And we’re even going to let Sillett sit next to Aniston.)

Who is your favourite rugby player of all time?

This sounds quite sad really but I would say Geordan Murphy. Training with him every day and seeing the ability that he has got is pretty special. For years he has made me look good and that’s a tough thing to do. So I would have to say Geordan.
I always used to think Carlos Spencer but having played against him a few times I’ve changed my opinion of him and think he’s a bit of a prat.

Well, they do say you should never meet your heroes.

Yeah, I know. Following him in New Zealand, I thought he was brilliant to watch but now playing against him a few times I think he is still massively gifted, it’s just my opinion of him as a person has changed.

Tea or coffee?

Coffee from Starbucks. That was an easy one.

Do you dunk a biscuit in it?

I shouldn’t because biscuits are not healthy for you. But every now and then it’s nice to dunk one, isn’t it?

And finally, International Rugby News is buying…what’s your post-match tipple?

That would be a couple of lager and limes and then move on to the Amaretto and cokes.

Our pleasure, thanks for your time, Andy, and good luck with the rest of the season.

Cheers mate.