MY LIFEIN RUGBY
AFTER 13 years of dodging tackles, collecting trophies, and testing the structural integrity of my joints to their very limit, I recently decided it was time to call it a day on my professional rugby career.
From growing up playing on mud-soaked pitches on freezing Sunday mornings, to the privilege of winning things with some of my best mates at multiple teams, rugby has given me resilience, friendships, and more physio appointments than I care to count.
I’ve been lucky enough to play for some of the most prestigious clubs in England and abroad, and survive a few career-threatening injuries, but at 30 years of age and two young children, it was time to give my body a break and think more long-term than chasing contracts until my legs eventually fell off.
Rugby started for me after we moved back to the UK from Hong Kong, where I was born, when I was five. My dad coached down at Cranbrook and my older brother was in the same team as Ruaridh McConnochie. I always used to run on the pitch to get involved whenever my brother was playing and in the end, my dad relented, and let me get stuck in.
Playing with the big boys, so to speak, helped with my development and I got picked up fairly early on by Saracens, after one of their coaches saw me at an elite training session arranged by my county, Kent, and invited me down to St Albans for a Tuesday night training session. My parents did the drive and I never looked back after that.
Saracens was obviously an incredibly difficult team to break into, especially the time I was there, as the calibre of player was ridiculously good. The coaching level was pretty much unrivalled too, so it was only natural that I improved very quickly. Stretts (David Strettle) took me under his wing, and I still stand by the fact he’s the smartest, best winger that I have ever seen play the game. He taught me so much.
While I was at Sarries, I played in the 2014 U20s World Cup when we beat South Africa in the final. If you look at the team we played against you’d think there’s no way we win that game, it contained players that have gone on to become multi-capped Boks. But we kind of caught fire in a bottle; everyone was playing at a super-high level at the right time. And we got lucky. Handre Pollard missed a couple of drop goals and we ended up winning by a point.
Maro Itoje was our captain and I am completely unsurprised that he has gone on to be Saracens, England and now Lions captain. If I could have bet on rugby, I’d have put that bet on at some point. I’ve shared some of my best times with Maro and he was the co-best man at our wedding. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make it at first, as it was during that England tour of Australia in 2022 where he got concussed.
“The best moment for me was scoring a match-winning try at the death v Bath” But because of that, he got flown home early, and he got back just in time.
With first-team opportunities at Sarries limited, I spent seven months out in New Zealand, with Canterbury, and that was kind of the catalyst for me wanting to leave the club. I played regular rugby and got the bug and I had opportunities to stay out there after and play for a Super Rugby franchise. We had a serious, serious team – the Barrett brothers and Richie Mo’unga to name but a few.
I was 21/22 at the time and being a young, single lad I was probably going out and partying too much. Going out and everyone knowing who I was, was kind of new. I thought it was the best thing ever at the time but when I got back to London, I realised that life under the radar was much more my speed.
I never had aspirations to be a one-club man, I always wanted to see how places did things differently. I had a couple of options around the Premiership on my return to England, but Quins was the best fit. I absolutely loved my time at Quins; it is an amazing place. I had amazing team-mates, and I still have a lot of love for the club. It’s just a shame I spent a lot of my time there injured. I had 16 months out after undergoing a knee reconstruction and then I broke my ankle and got a syndesmosis injury. There were many dark times. Credit to Elliott Clarke, who is a senior physio at Arsenal now, he was phenomenal throughout my recovery and spotted things the surgeons didn’t, and ultimately made some decisions on the back of what he saw, which prompted the surgeons to revisit things. Up until then, we were talking about me having to hang up the boots.
We won the Prem while I was there but I didn’t play in the final because I’d managed to injure myself in the semi-final. So, personally, the best moment for me, was scoring the match-winning try at the death, away to Bath. It was a ‘to and fro’ game right the way through and I managed to go over in the riverside corner by the hospitality boxes. On-pitch that is probably the most emotion I have given out after a game, I lost control of myself for a couple of minutes, whooping and hollering and probably saying things I shouldn’t have said!
Leaving Quins for Newcastle was my decision but it didn’t turn out how I’d hoped it would. I enjoyed the lads, I enjoyed the team and I enjoyed Dean’s (Richards) honesty, even if I did get called out a few times – everyone did! He is just the most straight-to-the-point man I think I have ever met.
Unfortunately, as everyone is aware, the place is incredibly hamstrung by finances. I didn’t really know what the owners wanted of the team and sometimes things were taken out of the coaches’ hands. The time I signed we had two wingers who were playing phenomenally well – Mateo Carreras went through a real purple patch, one that I had never seen the likes of, and there was Adam Radwan as well. They were also pushing for young, local lads to come through and after a couple of months there, I thought I might have made the wrong move.
I was looking to move back to London, to be closer to family, as we’d just had our first son. Having already been at Sarries and Quins, and heard the rumours about London Irish, I didn’t have many options, so that left Ealing. The Ealing coach asked if they could have me then and there and Newcastle agreed to it before telling me so I had to leave sooner than I’d have liked, which meant leaving my wife and son in Newcastle for six weeks whilst I worked out where we were going to live, which made me very popular!
When I signed on at Ealing, I knew it would be my last contract. It was pretty demoralising to be told that promotion wouldn’t be happening in my first six months, because I wanted to be back in the Prem and the club wanted to be in the Prem. But, as it turned out, we didn’t win the Champ anyway, Jersey did. After that, I just got comfortable that I was winding down my career and started to make plans for life after rugby, and being at Ealing enabled me to do that.
Working in a team environment with face-to-face interaction was important to me and my brother-in-law suggested I looked at a career in insurance. I tried to leverage the Gallagher connection, and they were very good to me in terms of giving me advice, and then I visited a few companies and sent my CV in, and luckily the company that I am working for now, Lockton, was looking for people with my kind of life experiences and took me on as an account executive.
Being born in Hong Kong, I was obviously interested to see that the team has qualified for the World Cup in 2027. I was never capped by England, so I would have been eligible to play for them. Over the last couple of years we spoke a fair bit about me playing for them, but we could never make the dates work. Now, it’s time to prioritise my new career and my health, I’ve got enough battle scars already!
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