RugbyRebels

I have just read that Sam Blanchet, ex of Exeter, England Sevens and Bedford, is on the GB Bobsleigh team.

Does anyone know of any other strange careers players have embarked on after retirement?

Mellsblue wrote:I have just read that Sam Blanchet, ex of Exeter, England Sevens and Bedford, is on the GB Bobsleigh team.

Does anyone know of any other strange careers players have embarked on after retirement?

Lawrence Dallaglio somehow or other got a job as a media rugby pundit.

Gareth Thomas has been 'Genie of the Lamp' in Aladdin a few times.

Kyran Bracken is an ice dancer. Seriously.

The really weird ones would be the likes of Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones forging successful careers in Holywood, especially when neither of them can act, Keanu Reeves might look down on the pair of them. I don't know rugby has thrown up anything that outlandish yet.

Rugby tends to give us coaches, media work, corporate stooges, the odd farmer or pilot, and the odd professional sicknote

Mark Sorenson and Rob Hawkins sell replacement joints (and over see the ops to put them in), Lee Robinson runs a removals company (i assume he can hold onto a sofa ok). Can't think of any really odd ones...

In football George Weah is now President of Liberia.....

Matt Dawson, masterchef winner, strictly contestant, QOS team captain.

quick google-

Martin Madden has his own cleaning company, and seems to have lost a ton of weight.....had he done that before, he may have got more than one cap.

Brent Cockbain drives trucks at a mine in Oz


https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3243214

Turns out Brad Barritt owns a coffee retail company - Tiki Tonga - and Chris Wyles has started a brewery - The Wolfpack. Chris Cusiter has started a whisky retail company in LA.
The Evans bros seem to be professional celebrities.
Somewhere at the back of mind I think Paul Sackey had a car importing business.
It is more wide and varied than I thought. I just thought they became coaches or pundits and/or opened a restaurant/coffee house.

Mellsblue wrote:Turns out Brad Barritt owns a coffee retail company - Tiki Tonga - and Chris Wyles has started a brewery - The Wolfpack. Chris Cusiter has started a whisky retail company in LA.
The Evans bros seem to be professional celebrities.
Somewhere at the back of mind I think Paul Sackey had a car importing business.
It is more wide and varied than I thought. I just thought they became coaches or pundits and/or opened a restaurant/coffee house.

Tom Croft opened a coffee bar.....should have called it the Luxury Caff....

Banquo wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:Turns out Brad Barritt owns a coffee retail company - Tiki Tonga - and Chris Wyles has started a brewery - The Wolfpack. Chris Cusiter has started a whisky retail company in LA.
The Evans bros seem to be professional celebrities.
Somewhere at the back of mind I think Paul Sackey had a car importing business.
It is more wide and varied than I thought. I just thought they became coaches or pundits and/or opened a restaurant/coffee house.

Tom Croft opened a coffee bar.....should have called it the Luxury Caff....

Wine bar would’ve been better. The Luxury Carafe.

Banquo wrote:Matt Dawson, masterchef winner, strictly contestant, QOS team captain.

quick google-

Martin Madden has his own cleaning company, and seems to have lost a ton of weight.....had he done that before, he may have got more than one cap.

Brent Cockbain drives trucks at a mine in Oz


https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3243214

Didn't Phil Vickery do pretty well on Masterchef too?

Not famous people but two guys, one a frontrow and one a tiny flyhalf who are both senior psychiatric nurses. A 2nd row that teaches autistic children, another frontrow who was a prison officer but now works for a pharmaceutical company.
It's one of the coolest things about rugby, the variety of your teammates.

Glen Webb one of the first black Welsh players.....went on to sell security equipment for ADT with my ex.

kk67 wrote:Not famous people but two guys, one a frontrow and one a tiny flyhalf who are both senior psychiatric nurses. A 2nd row that teaches autistic children, another frontrow who was a prison officer but now works for a pharmaceutical company.
It's one of the coolest things about rugby, the variety of your teammates.

Glen Webb one of the first black Welsh players.....went on to sell security equipment for ADT with my ex.

There was the sad case several years ago of a top England international backrower who also wound up in prison, not as an officer but an inmate, on conviction of fraud/theft.

Spiffy wrote:

kk67 wrote:Not famous people but two guys, one a frontrow and one a tiny flyhalf who are both senior psychiatric nurses. A 2nd row that teaches autistic children, another frontrow who was a prison officer but now works for a pharmaceutical company.
It's one of the coolest things about rugby, the variety of your teammates.

Glen Webb one of the first black Welsh players.....went on to sell security equipment for ADT with my ex.

There was the sad case several years ago of a top England international backrower who also wound up in prison, not as an officer but an inmate, on conviction of fraud/theft.

shouldn't have left Cotton Traders.....another notable ex rugby players enterprise.

The obvious name missing is Tony O'Reilly who really did have a career outside rugby, and really lived up to the idea that a career without scandal is no career

Bionic Frank Butcher used to have some cracking stories.

Lanky and quick Scottish winger Bill Gammell went for a bit more than hospitality etc..:

'Gammell's father invested in US oil company Bush-Overbey, owned by future US President George H. W. Bush. The two families became friends, with George W. Bush spending the summer at the Gammell's farm in Scotland. George W. attended Bill Gammell's wedding in Glasgow in 1983. The two have remained close friends. When George W. Bush assumed the Presidency, both he and Blair reportedly called their mutual friend Gammell to ask his opinion of the other.

Bill Gammell a director of the Scottish Institute of Sport and Artemis AiM VCT plc., and in 2004 he was awarded UK Entrepreneur of the Year. In the 2006 honours list, Gammell was made a Knight Bachelor "for services to Industry in Scotland", and in 2017 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.'

Digby wrote:The obvious name missing is Tony O'Reilly who really did have a career outside rugby, and really lived up to the idea that a career without scandal is no career

markedly different era though, where rugby was never a career- else you lob in the likes of JPR...or Condom who was a nightclub bouncer, amusingly...or priest Jack Gavin...or pilot Rory.

Ryan Grant and Ruaridh Jackson run a Gin distillery start-up.

Settle down, Dickheads.

Martin Hayfield became an "actor" in the very loosest meaning of the word

Which Tyler wrote:Martin Hayfield became an "actor" in the very loosest meaning of the word

Hagrid’s body double. An Oscar awaits. I think he’s a very good anchor/presenter. Of course he was educated at one the country’s finest establishments so it’s no great suprise.

Mellsblue wrote:

Which Tyler wrote:Martin Hayfield became an "actor" in the very loosest meaning of the word

Hagrid’s body double. An Oscar awaits. I think he’s a very good anchor/presenter. Of course he was educated at one the country’s finest establishments so it’s no great suprise.

Didn't he also do some work in LOTR? playing the role of oversized person whilst a hobbit is on-screen (somsimilar to his dilemmas Hagrid's backside)
Was offered a part on Game Of Thrones* - turned it down as he didn't think the show would amount to anything...


* One of the Cleganes I believe

Which Tyler wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:

Which Tyler wrote:Martin Hayfield became an "actor" in the very loosest meaning of the word

Hagrid’s body double. An Oscar awaits. I think he’s a very good anchor/presenter. Of course he was educated at one the country’s finest establishments so it’s no great suprise.

Didn't he also do some work in LOTR? playing the role of oversized person whilst a hobbit is on-screen (somsimilar to his dilemmas Hagrid's backside)
Was offered a part on Game Of Thrones* - turned it down as he didn't think the show would amount to anything...


* One of the Cleganes I believe

I believe so.

Turning down GOT is up there with the record companies who turned down The Beatles.

Mellsblue wrote:I have just read that Sam Blanchet, ex of Exeter, England Sevens and Bedford, is on the GB Bobsleigh team.

Does anyone know of any other strange careers players have embarked on after retirement?

Dan Luger was also in the Bobsleigh team

And Phil Christopers was briefly employed as a Matt Damon double