5 Six Nations players who had normal jobs before becoming rugby stars

In an era where you only make it if you dedicate your life to it, it’s rare to find players who just months prior to their professional career were grinding the 9-5.

With that in mind, here are five Six Nations stars who worked hard before making it big...

Furlong comes from a farming family in the parish of Horeswood in County Wexford, where worked full-time before signing a full-tim deal with Leinster in 2013.

He maintains the family’s dairy farm, of about 50 or 60 acres, is small. “The most cows we ever milked was 30, which by today’s standards would be tiny. It wouldn’t even register.”

His father, James, also had a slaughter house and his own butchers shop before working for other butchers.

After being released by Harlequins aged 18, the future England second-row ended up getting a job in the local Sainsbury's to ensure he could continue his rugby career with National 2 North side Worthing. He worked in the bakery section and says it was a 'good grounding' for him and made him appreciate what hard work is 

The England women’s star was a PE teacher at King Edward’s School Birmingham, following in the footsteps of fellow England rugby international Natasha Hunt, but like many of her national teammates, she left her job in order to become a full-time professional rugby player. She famously lifted the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2014.

After secondary school, the Scotland star pursued an apprenticeship for three years as a stonemason, in a business owned by a family friend, whilst his rugby developed. Pocketing £300 per week, supplemented by £50 in his hand from Falkirk Rugby Club, Russell is now one of the pre-eminent stand-offs in world rugby and certainly one of the most exciting.

This is the picture that illustrates the heights Williams has scaled to reach international rugby, starting off as a scaffolder. It wasn’t work for the faint-hearted, with Williams rigging scaffolding “over the top of a blast furnace, 300 feet from the ground” back in Wales.