I was offered a NFL trial but it was too big a risk
MY LIFEIN RUGBY
THE FORMER BATH, BEDFORD, EL SALVADOR AND PERTEMPS BEES WINGER
WHEN I was 16, in my first season for Colston's, I dislocated and broke my ankle and broke my leg playing in a festival up in Tynedale. We had a great team – every one of us went on to get a pro contract – and I remember Warren Fury, who went on to play for the Falcons among a few other clubs, praying behind the goals after seeing my foot facing the wrong way. It was horrific. But thankfully the support network I had around me in Bath's academy and at the school itself helped to get me through what was a tricky time.
Before the injury I'd clocked 10.6 for the 100 metres so, potentially, I was on track to one day break the 10-second barrier. The injury naturally took a bit of edge off my speed but I was still quick and at one point later on in my career, just before I moved to Spain, I was offered an 11-week trial, on very good money, by an NFL club who saw me as a potential wide receiver. Having family in Boston Massachusetts, I was an NFL fan from an early age – the Patriots are my team – so it was very appealing. But, back then, they didn't have an organised pathway in place like there has been for Louis Rees-Zammit and Christan Wade, so it was considered too big a risk.
Brian Ashton put me on the bench against Worcester for the last game of the 2005/06 season but it wasn't until the following October that I made my senior Bath debut in the EDF Cup, away to Bristol. Being part of that squad was brilliant for me as a young winger. Matt Perry took me under his wing and I had people like Joe Maddocks and David Bory to learn from. If you look at that team, man for man I would back them against anyone. We blew some teams away but we lacked the consistency needed to win the league. It was great, though, to be in the European Challenge Cup-winning squad in 2008. It's incredible to think that that's still the last trophy the club has won, but I'm pretty sure the wait will be over soon.
Bath offered me a long-term contract to stay once my original deal had come to an end, and I was in two minds about what to do. It was the club where I grew up playing but, with my good friend Matt Banahan tending to get the nod over me, I ended up going to Bedford. Nick Walshe was going there as player-coach and he convinced me the style of rugby would suit me. It was an opportunity to play week in, week out and find out the levels I could achieve.
It was a successful move for me, I finished as the club's top try scorer both seasons, and was the top try-scorer in the Championship
“I almost enjoyed playing semi-pro more because the pressure was less” in one of the years. But I was lucky to be surrounded by some fantastic players. You had Karl Dickson at 9, Billy Twelvetrees at 12 and Will Harries on the other wing. Everyone was a similar age to me so everyone was hungry and wanted to play a fast style of rugby. Having said that, it was a bit of a shock when I first rocked up. The pitch was great, the stadium was like a mini Rec but the gym was a little bit different to the state-of-the-art facility I'd been used to at Bath Uni. Rusty weights aside, I was glad I'd made the decision to move there, though.
After two seasons, I felt like my time in the Championship was kind of done. I did have offers to go back to the Premiership but not to any clubs I wanted to go to, so that's when I decided to pursue my life-long ambition to play rugby overseas. I was set to join Hilly (former Bath and England scrum-half, Richard Hill) over in France but that fell through when he got the Worcester job. He tried to get me to sign for Worcester but as I said, I had my heart set on going abroad, and that's when El Salvador came up.
Spain, for the 15s, was unknown but Valladolid wasn't far from Madrid so I saw it as a really exciting proposition. The set-up was much more professional than people would probably have believed and because we were competing in the European Challenge Cup, we invested heavily in the squad, bringing in Samoan 7s star Uale Mai. Unfortunately we under-performed in the league, and our best success came when we became the first Spanish team to beat an Italian side (Petrarca) in Europe. It was an enjoyable season, nonetheless. Even the memories of those small wins live for ever.
There was a policy of getting us foreign players to sign longer-term contracts with a view to us playing internationally for Spain. But that wasn't the direction I wanted to go in. I was aware, probably earlier than a lot of other players, that
I needed to think about a career outside of rugby, and recruitment seemed like an attractive option. It was about being resilient and target-driven – values that had been instilled in me as a rugby player. I think playing elite sport you can't let a mistake affect you and that's a transferable skill that continues to serve me well to this day.
On returning to the UK, I still continued to play alongside my new career in London. I think the first interview I rocked up to, I had a black eye from playing 7s with the Templars. Russell Earnshaw then asked me to go and play for Per-temps Bees and I did that for a few months, and from that point on, I continued to lace up my boots whenever I could. I played for Barking, the season after they nearly got to the Championship, Tunbridge Juddians and then Wimbledon. I almost enjoyed playing semi-professionally more because the pressure wasn't there, and you still picked up a tidy little pay packet.
Nowadays, I am loving being back in Bath as a head hunter for Elite Performance Partners (EPP), which was set up by former fly-half David Slemen. We help support, build and grow high-performing teams; I sit within the search and selection pillar. Recently, we worked with World Rugby to get Simon Mannix in as Portugal head coach. The two other pillars are advisory and leadership development. For example, we work with Premier League clubs and advise them on organisational structure for clarity and alignment. It is great to hear David and Managing Partner, Anna Edwards, on their calls because when they are talking to leaders within the sports industry, it takes me back to the support I had. I am appreciative of those people who go above and beyond their remit, especially physiotherapists. Their hard skills are amazing because they patch you up and put you back on the pitch, but their soft skills, that keep you motivated when you are injured and bring you up when your head is down, those are the things that no one talks about.
Transitioning out of rugby isn't always straightforward and I consider myself lucky to have found a career that motivates me every day and is so fulfilling. We are supporting currently an organisation backed by World Rugby called the Global Rugby Players' Foundation, whose goal is to make sure players are more forward-thinking when it comes to sorting out their life after rugby. At the end of the day, it is a short career. Mine was nearly over before it even started, so I can't stress enough how important this topic is.
