Get your tickets to see the Wallabies take on Argentina and New Zealand during the 2025 Flight Centre Rugby Championship!<\/a><\/p>\nThe 24-year-old dramatically left rugby union in January 2024 to pursue a
career in American football and was on the training squads of the Kansas City
Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars, but did not play in a regular-season game.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month Rees-Zammit, who made his name in rugby union with
Gloucester, a fierce local rival of Bristol, said he was returning to the
15-a-side code.<\/p>\n
He spent last season with Jacksonville Jaguars, having been cut by the
Chiefs the previous campaign, but failed to make an NFL appearance for either
franchise as a wide receiver after originally switching sports by joining the
NFL’s International Player Pathway Program in 2024.<\/p>\n
By then he had already scored 14 tries in 32 Tests for Wales and been
selected for the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa.<\/p>\n
Bristol, who reached the Premiership semi-finals last season before losing
to eventual champions Bath, are one of the most attacking teams in English
rugby’s top flight.<\/p>\n
Their 95 tries was the joint-highest in the division during the 2024\/25
campaign and Rees-Zammit said their approach made them an “obvious choice”.<\/p>\n
“The style of rugby the team play — all about entertaining the fans and
growing the game — perfectly aligns to how I want to play and how I express
myself on and off the field,” Rees-Zammit said in a Bristol statement.<\/p>\n
“I want to get fans out of their seats, create exciting moments and help
people fall in love with the game. I’m excited to return to rugby at a club
that demands those values.”<\/p>\n
Bristol’s opening match of the new Premiership season is against Leicester
on September 28.<\/p>\n
Rees-Zammit made his Gloucester debut soon after turning 18 and went on to
score 42 tries in 77 matches for the Cherry and Whites during a six-year stint
at Kingsholm.<\/p>\n
His first Wales cap came in 2020 aged 19, with his speed and finishing
ability making him a rising star of the sport.<\/p>\n
Bears boss Pat Lam has no doubt Rees-Zammit, who will join the squad on
Saturday, is an ideal fit, saying: “He has the drive and ambition to be one of
the best back-three players in the world, and his goals align perfectly with
our ambitions as a club.<\/p>\n
“At just 24 years old, we know the athlete and competitor he is. The way we
play and the way he wants to play fit seamlessly together, and we’re looking
forward to working with him.”<\/p>\n
Wales’ new coach, Steve Tandy, has already said Rees-Zammit could be in
contention for a Test recall as soon as the November internationals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bristol have signed Louis Rees-Zammit following his return to rugby union
after the Wales wing gave up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85,12812],"class_list":["post-69145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}