Sam Riley
Having joined Harlequins at the age of 15, Hooker Sam Riley graduated into the Senior Harlequins’ Academy ahead of the 2019/20 season. Having captained the Club at U18 level and re...
Select an answer to get started
Who are you?
Hi, welcome to JAAQ. I'm Sam Riley from Harlequin, and I'm.
What motivates you?
For me, family and friends are a big motivator. And then also I have desire and dreams to play for England, play 200 times for Harlequin and just do what I love doing when I was younger and doing it on a bigger stage in front of loads of people and just enjoying it really. But yeah, just be making my family proud.
How do you deal with setbacks?
I think setbacks are very important things, but they're very annoying as well. I think toward the start of last year, I made my prem debut and then played quite a lot. Was invited to an England camp and everything seemed like it was going up. And then towards the end of the season I had two surgeries, one on my neck, one on my wrist, which kind of, I don't really know, set me back and I didn't really know what to do. I had a tough summer. I had a lot going on, recovering from both of 'em. And it was tough. I had to talk to my friend's, family, make and remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing now, getting back to where I was. And then the start of the season was just getting back into it. And now I can see that it was an important to realise. One, there's going to be setbacks in life, but also just to understand that there's more to life than rugby. That in a blink of an eye, it can just go, there can be injuries and stuff, but you're going to come back stronger. You're going to get stronger physically, mentally, you're going to get closer with people around you. You really find out who cares about you the most, people who check on you the most. But I think it's hugely important and I think without it, you don't necessarily grow as a person.