Former Leicester Tigers, Connacht, Dragons and Agen second row, Joe Makysymiw, reflects on his life in rugby.

I realised pretty quickly in France that passion can be a double-edged sword.
I had just arrived at Agen with absolutely no French – not even GCSE level – when we were in a team meeting and my name kept getting shouted.
The coach was banging the board, my name was ringing around the room and I was sat there thinking, “here we go, I am getting properly bigged up here”.
I had a bit of a smile on my face, nodding along, assuming they were saying how well I had started, how great it wa...