A lot of the lads were already in academies, whereas that route had bypassed me and I’d been playing social rugby with my mates at Dorking. I had a lot of growth and a lot of catching up to do. Financially, though, I was probably better off than my peers at that stage as I was getting 40p/mile for travelling around the M25 to training and back, which added up to more than what the contracted academy lads were on!
Saracens’ motto was we’ll treat you unbelievably well but you have to work unbelievably hard in exchange. If you weren’t up for that, you were quickly spat out. Them forward committing in that way clearly worked when you look at what you look back at the trophies we went on to win. It wasn’t just the big team bonding trips to Munich etc., where they looked after you, but the smaller detail stuff as well. For instance, the club paid for me to go through university and were superb in managing my schedule around studying and training.
Being treated that way and being in a squad pushing for silverware never made me want to go anywhere else to be honest, not at least until I turned 30 and wanted to use rugby as a means to travel, which I did by going to Japan in 2020. I had had some interest from other clubs along the way but I was happy to be involved with a club that, step-by-step, went on to dominate English and European rugby.
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