Hull Rugby stars looking for a career after the game

Josh Bowden celebrates a try during his time playing for Hull FC

When rugby is all you have ever known and you have been at the top of the Super League game for over a decade, what happens when it's time to hang up your boots?

It is the side of the sport no one sees, so say three professional rugby league players who are all now navigating a world without the sport and finding new jobs.

Jamie Shaul, Reece Lyne and Josh Bowden all went through the Hull FC academy together as teenagers.

But now in their 30s and leaving the sport, they are taking very different paths as they look to find future careers.

Shaul, who is 31, is a back-to-back Challenge Cup winner with his hometown club.

He will forever be remembered by Black and Whites fans for scoring the match-winning try in a 12-10 triumph over Warrington Wolves back in 2016, sealing the club's first-ever Wembley win and the Challenge Cup trophy.

Following his retirement in September, he started work as a builder, a trade he learnt as a teenager before turning professional.

"Being a professional rugby league player, it's tough and it's hard mentally as well," he said.

"I know a lot of players who have struggled mentally after retiring from professional sport.

"You think early 30s, you're too old to play rugby, but you've got another 40 years of work."

Jamie Shaul went back to the building trade after retiring in September

He described professional sport as a "cut-throat business" and said retirement "creeps up on you".

"Another hard thing for players is knowing what you want to do," he added.

"I've done it a different way to everyone else where I went into rugby at the age of 19 and so already had this trade behind me and because I knew I wanted to do this all through my playing career I didn't have to do anything about it, but it is so important.

"Rugby league players don't get paid enough to retire and that's why I'm grafting on site."

Josh Bowden is studying to be an electrician as he finishes his final season as a professional player

His former team mate Josh Bowden is still currently playing rugby for Wakefield Trinity.

He has another year on his contract but expects to retire after that and is getting prepared.

"I'm doing all my electrician qualifications," he said.

"I started that last year so hopefully once I've completed this I can go straight into work.

"I started my journey of doing electrician qualifications before I started playing professional rugby but then I got a call and got asked to sign full time.

"I really wish I did carry on doing my qualifications so I didn't have to do these two or three years now and doing all the extra hours after training and I'd be fully qualified now.

"I'd stress to players coming through the importance of getting a trade behind them or at least do something so they have a backup plan after rugby because most people can't retire off a rugby career."

Reece Lyne plans to open a sports centre for disadvantaged young people in Hull

Reece Lyne was signed by Hull FC at the age of 15 and went full time a year later before moving onto Wakefield Trinity where he spent the rest of his career.

He retired this season and is now in the process of setting up a centre for disadvantaged young people in Hull and wants to help them turn their lives around through sport.

The 31-year-old said: "Your whole life up until now has just been rugby, rugby, rugby and then all of a sudden it's like restarting your life again at 30, mid-30s and you don't really know what you want to do.

"As a youngster, you think retirement is a life time away but sitting here now, 13 years on from the start of my career, and it's come round in the blink of an eye.

"As a young kid, all you want to do is go into that full time environment, Hull FC offered me that opportunity and it's not something you're going to pass because that's your dream.

"I didn't really have anything to fall back on so if I'd have got a career-ending injury or have this opportunity I have now, I'd still be scratching the surfaces now trying to find something and that's when you're forced into doing something you don't really want to do."