NO ONE ever starts out as a professional rugby player. Those of us lucky enough to have picked up an oval ball got into it due to a love of the game and what it can do for you. For the very few who are good enough, committed enough and lucky enough, a professional career is a possibility and that brings money into it. But that has its own perils, as Scott van Breda found out the hard way.

The South African made Jersey his home and played for Jersey Reds under compatriot Harvey Biljon. He had a spell as club captain and in 2022-23 was part of the Championship-winning squad.

It was a fairytale story covered in these pages, but it all came abruptly crashing down. In September 2023, the club went into administration. Instantly, players and staff lost their jobs and lives were overturned without so much as a warning. Sadly, the Reds were not an isolated case after the demise of Wasps, Worcester Warriors and London Irish.

Losing four clubs from the top of the game made the battle to find a new club tougher than ever for free agents. Van Breda was left with a conundrum.

“For me at the age of 31 as I was then, I was like ‘Do I try and chase the dream for two or three years?’ Or as we were settled in Jersey, ‘Do I bite the bullet from a professional standpoint?’

“My wife was happy and my little boy was loving it, so it was a case of there are bigger things than rugby. It was just one small part of me that was finished.”

Having made the decision to call time on a professional career that took in spells at Eastern Province, Southern Kings and Stormers, as well as a few years at Worcester either side of his two stints at the Reds, van Breda had to start looking for a new job to support his young family and their life on the island that they had come to really love.