‘An experience you can’t buy’: Louis Rees-Zammit on his NFL adventure and fresh hope for Wales

Lightning-fast attacker lines up at full-back against England insisting that his gridiron tilt will only help his rugby

The late, great Tom Petty wrote the song that, ultimately, defined Louis Rees-Zammit’s American football adventure. “Runnin’ down a dream, that never would come to me …” Twelve months ago Rees-Zammit was in New Orleans watching the Superbowl and still hoping to carve out a multimillion dollar NFL career. Now here he is, back in a Welsh rugby shirt and eager to make up for lost time.

Sliding doors and all that. This weekend in America all roads lead to this year’s Superbowl in California: the Seattle Seahawks v the New England Patriots . But as Wales’s 25-year-old prodigal son prepares for the contrasting vibes and smells of a sodden Twickenham in February, he insists he still has no regrets about the gridiron flirtation that removed him from Six Nations circulation for two years.