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The Wales wing has opened up about the biggest challenges he has faced in his career so far
Wales star Louis Rees-Zammit has reflected on the biggest challenges he has faced in his career to date and revealed how one conversation with his father changed everything for him.
While he is still only 24, the Bristol Bears wing has already achieved more than most in rugby, winning a Six Nations title, playing at a Rugby World Cup and touring with the British & Irish Lions by the age of 22, while also starring for Gloucester in the Gallagher PREM.
That was before he made the bombshell decision to walk away from rugby and join the NFL’s international player pathway ahead of the 2024 Six Nations, taking a huge leap of faith to pursue his childhood dream and signing deals with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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Ultimately, it didn’t work out for Rees-Zammit in the United States and he came back to the sport where he made his name last summer, signing with PREM side Bristol Bears and making an immediate return to the Wales squad for the autumn internationals.
Having taken stock of his 18 months across the Atlantic, the Wales wing has opened up on the challenges he has overcome over the course of his career, revealing that the turning point didn’t come in professional rugby or the NFL, but as a homesick teenager at Hartpury College.
Speaking to presenter Adam Smith on the Original Penguin x CALM podcast Under the Surface, Rees-Zammit admitted that he initially struggled being away from home before a message from his dad Joe changed it all.
“It was tough for me,” he said. “Even doing sleepovers as a kid, I was always getting homesick and my mum or dad would come and pick me up.
“I went to Hartpury as a 16-year-old and on the first night I was on the phone to my dad saying, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ purely because I was homesick. It was nothing to do with the rugby or any of my teammates, nothing like that, I just didn’t like being away from home.”
“My dad literally texted me back saying ‘you’ll get over it’ or something, straight to the point like ‘you’ll do it’. Literally, from that moment, I slept that night and then I didn’t even think about it again. It was the best two years of my life.
“I don’t know what would have happened [without that phone call or message],” Rees-Zammit added. “If he had turned around and said ‘I’ll come and pick you up now’, I probably would have gone.
“But he was like stick at it and see what comes of it, at least give it a bit of time. That one night, I fell asleep, woke up and literally didn’t think about it again”.
The 35-cap international also spoke about his time in the NFL and, while he has no big regrets over taking the leap, admitted that his stint might have turned out differently if he had taken another route into the sport.
“Not really anymore, no,” he said when asked if he still thought ‘what if?’ about his time in the United States. “I had 18 months of experiencing it and I’d probably say, maybe if I went to college, things would have turned out differently because I would have been able to play the sport.
“It’s probably too hard to go straight into the NFL, as a receiver as well. Those boys are playing the sport from such a young age, they’re knowing their stuff, they’re running routes from seven years old. For me, never having done that before, it’s probably a bit too tough a challenge.”
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