However, the two often came as a consequence of the other, and I was lucky enough to be in sides that played good expansive rugby who also enjoyed a fair degree of success in terms of winning silverware and promotions.
I was coached at Newark RUFC by no less than Dusty Hare. Having started playing as a five-year-old at my hometown club, Boston, I’d moved across to Newark because they were the best team in the area and I was showing some promise. Dusty’s son was in the same age-group as me, which is how it all came about. Dusty’s a really nice bloke and we got on well and he actually came to see me play and talked to me a few times when he was scouting for Northampton and I was in the Championship with Doncaster.
Whilst I was at school, Hartpury College offered me a place but I deferred my first year to go to New Zealand on a gap year and did a season of club rugby out there first, on the South Island at Riwaka Rugby Club, near Nelson. It’s where James Lowe is from, he was there when I was there. He loved a good time and was definitely one of the standouts. Rugby in New Zealand was different gravy. I was like, ‘what is going on here?’. Their love of rugby is wild. Within our whole league the furthest club away from us was 20 minutes, there were clubs everywhere. You’d have All Blacks dropping down to play a game of club rugby every now and again. In one game Chris Jack was in the opposition line up. I came back when my money ran out because I didn’t fancy the job someone had found for me – picking fruit in an orchard.
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