Thankfully for Wales - and for new coach Steve Tandy - who may well hand Cracknell a first start for his country against Japan on Saturday - Cracknell’s parents made sure their son inherited the best of their virtues.
When the Leicester back row forward finally pulled on the red jersey and stepped off the bench to make his Test debut against Argentina last weekend, it was a reward for a decade of grit and graft.
Those qualities - says the 31-year-old - were inherited from his parents, who both happened to have served in the judiciary as judges.
The Tigers player insists that everything about his career — the perseverance, the discipline, the refusal to give in — comes from his mother and late father.
“My mum has a very persistent personality with the way that she approaches her work,” he says.
“She is very professional and very hard-working. I have taken that.
“My dad was very resilient in a different kind of way. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was young, 12 or 13.
“He managed to live for another 17 years and was very stoic with the way that he went about that. He’d put it to one side and take things as they came.”
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Cracknell’s mother, Felicity Davies, continues to serve as a judge in the north of England.
His father, Tom Cracknell — also a judge — died last year, aged 80. Their strength and determination, Cracknell says, have been the backbone of his own.
“Resilience is something that I have luckily learned from my parents,” he says.
“I was lucky with the way that I was brought up, and that’s a part of me.”
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For most players, an international debut at 31 would be the final chapter of an unlikely dream.
For Cracknell, it’s simply the latest stage in a journey that has been consistently unconventional.
“It was a really special week,” he says of his debut against the Pumas.
“Being a bit older made it a bit sweeter for me and I felt that I could really enjoy it and soak it in.
“It’s taken a while and I have had quite a few tough times, but I am sure every player will have tough moments in their career.”
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Cracknell’s career has indeed been built on persistence. There were times, he admits, when the next opportunity seemed impossible to find.
“I remember being at the Ospreys in 2021, not playing, not getting in the team and just going to the gym, trying to get stronger and bigger,” he recalls.
“I didn’t know where the next opportunity would be, I couldn’t find a club and I thought that I just had to keep pushing and try to get myself ready to perform in case something came.”
Something eventually did come — first with London Irish, then Leicester Tigers, where Michael Cheika’s faith helped bring out the best in him.
Cracknell’s Premiership form this season forced Wales’ coaches to take notice.
When Taulupe Faletau suffered a knee injury, Cracknell was called into the squad — and seized the chance he’d been waiting for since 2017, when he was first named in a Wales Six Nations squad but never capped.
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Cracknell’s game mirrors his personality: tough, disciplined, and unshowy.
“That resilience is a part of my game,” he says. “I am not necessarily going to come up with special moments all the time but I will hopefully be someone that keeps turning up.”
He smiles when asked what he brings to this Wales side.
“There are a lot of players in the team that can do special things and maybe I can offer something steady,” he says.
“It’s taken me quite a while to realise that’s okay and that’s enough — I can be a player who does some of the not-so-pretty stuff. Being flash has never really been my game; it’s more fire.”
At Leicester, he’s become known for his relentless tackling and physical presence — qualities that Danny Wilson, Wales’ assistant coach, highlighted when naming him in the squad.
“Bringing physicality is a big thing for me and bringing the fundamentals that I have tried to build over the last two or three seasons,” Cracknell says.
Born in Leeds, Cracknell might not be the typical Welsh rugby story, but his roots run deep.
His Welsh grandfather, and his time in the Rygbi Gogledd Cymru (RGC) set-up in Colwyn Bay, gave him a connection that shaped his rugby identity.
“I went to South Africa, came back and signed up for the Welsh Exiles,” he explains.
“I grew up in Leeds but I have always been proud of that part of me. I only knew one grandfather and he was Welsh.”
“Chris Horsman was the coach at RGC, and there was a really good conditioner called Sam Dodge.
“They took me under their wing and the set-up was really good – they built me up into what I needed to be. I owe a lot to them because they brought me in when I didn’t really know where I was going.”
That grounding helped him earn a spot in the Wales Under-20s team and, eventually, a place in the senior squad.
At 21, Cracknell admits he was too focused on the destination to enjoy the journey.
“When I was 21 I was so blinkered,” he says.
“I had tunnel vision and put a lot of pressure on myself. I didn’t really take that much in.
“It’s taken me quite a long time to be able to take things in and find ways to do that with different approaches.”
Now, older and more grounded, he values perspective as much as performance.
“I appreciate the journey and manage to see the overview,” he says.
“Whatever opportunities I get with Wales will be great.
“There have been a lot of battles along the way,” he says. “But that has made it a lot sweeter.
“I just want to keep getting better as a player and push to the next level. I feel that in the last year and a half I have taken some really good steps, developed and found different levels to my performance.”
His parents taught him resilience. On Saturday, Cracknell intends to show it’s not always how quickly a journey takes that matters, but what is learned along the way.
