Irish faith helped me to fulfil my Wallaby dream

I WAS a rugby fan first and foremost before I joined the Western Force, aged 14. My happiness on a weekend would be based on whether they had won or not so I was more sad than not given the results of the team! I had the jerseys of people like Matt Giteau and David Pocock on my bedroom wall, so to get the chance to join their academy and then ultimately to go and train and then play for the team was unbelievable.

- OLI HOSKINS

As such, I was always aware of the importance of the connection between the players and the fans so I would always make time after games to go and sign autographs, chat to people, have my photo taken and all that kind of stuff. At the end of the day, there is nothing innately special about any of us. I'm just a bloke who has played rugby for a while, so it's been quite humbling to have received all the messages I have had, especially from London Irish fans, who I had a real affinity with, now that I have announced my retirement.

It may sound a bit over dramatic but I was so emotionally invested in playing for London Irish. I loved that club, and a lot of that stems from the faith they showed in me when I arrived in the UK from Australia with my confidence at a low ebb. I debuted for the Force when I was 20, and I thought I'd be with them for the rest of my life, play over 200 games for them, play for the Wallabies 100 times and this is going to be it for the entirety of my career. But they got rid of me after three years and it broke my heart. Their main issue was that I wasn't scrummaging well enough. I was a No.8 at heart, as that's where I'd started out, and I didn't take scrummaging seriously enough. For me, it was just a necessary evil. So I put feelers out to clubs in the UK to essentially learn how to scrum, and I ended up at London Irish and had such an amazing time.