Kyran’s relit the fire in me to become a professional

THE height of my playing career came at university level with Swansea and my three years there in the first team gave me belief and aspirations of becoming a professional player once I had graduated.

To go from that to leaving rugby behind for six years was largely down to circumstance because I moved to London to pursue a career.

Maybe things could have been different for me. I found it difficult being English at a Welsh university, and I think that was why I began to fall out of love with the game a bit.

I graduated from Swansea in 2013, so my final competitive game would have been around April of that year. The only games that I have played since then were two memorial matches for a friend of mine. But rugby had always been a part of my childhood all the way through to my early 20s.

I began playing as a mini, junior and then colt for a number of clubs in the Midlands where I grew up. From there I went to Warwick School at the age of 14 and that heightened my expectations given how their reputation has ascended in schools rugby over the past two decades.

In my final year of university, below, the standard was very good and I faced decent opposition week after week. I also managed to turn out for Carmarthen Athletic and a couple of other semi-professional Welsh clubs when they were down on players. It was completely by chance that I came back to rugby with Wanstead. I had considered coming back to playing in the last couple of years, but had put it off, and then earlier this year I saw an advert on Instagram that Wanstead were recruiting.

I had just moved to Tottenham, so it is not too far away from me. I wanted to go and give it a shot and see what the standard is like.

For me it was just a case of getting back into the game as opposed to anything more serious, but when Kyran arrived and told me he believed I could play at a higher level, it’s become something much more. I am working on it five days a week to evolve my technique and get my fitness levels in shape for the top level.

Kyran has said the Premiership and the Championship is a possibility even at 28. I do not view this as starting from scratch, it is more a case of dusting off some of my old skills and putting in the graft.