The Prem season might be a \u201cwhirlwind\u201d, but it is nothing compared to the grind Wand experienced with his erstwhile employer. In keeping with 2026 as a year of firsts for Wand, he will marry his fianc\u00e9e, Miranda, this summer, who has been with him through thick and thin.<\/p>\n
It was with Miranda\u2019s father that Wand experienced the graft of sandblasting alongside his part-time job as an up-and-coming 19-year-old for Cambridge. That was in the third tier of English rugby before Coventry, one league higher, came calling, followed by the dizzy highs of Leicester. Wand had to bide his time for the Tigers \u2013 this has been his breakout season despite arriving in September 2024 \u2013 but he has climbed ladders both inside and out of rugby.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy fianc\u00e9e\u2019s dad was a sandblaster, cleaning up brickwork,\u201d Wand says. \u201cWe used to do all these commercial jobs, on site, doing factories. You might do steel or wooden beams. I was doing that when I was in Nat One, around four years ago. It\u2019s pretty mental. I remember doing 18-hour shifts, through the night; I\u2019d do a couple of them and then go to training the next day. It seems like such a long time ago now but, when people remind you of it, it wasn\u2019t that long ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt certainly keeps you humble. I suppose it has taught me a few lessons without really thinking about it: graft and hard work. I guess that bled into my rugby a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is added sentimentality to Wand\u2019s Leicester story. As a boy, Wand was a Tigers fan. Even when he played for Coventry between 2022 and 2024, Wand would race down the M69 to catch Leicester\u2019s home matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to a lot of Tigers games growing up,\u201d he says. \u201cI suppose it was a dream come true; it was definitely weird. When you\u2019re on the outside, though, and you come in, you don\u2019t really think about it too much. It\u2019s just rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Prem season might be a \u201cwhirlwind\u201d, but it is nothing compared to the grind Wand experienced with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[46723,129713,5903,23451,217,101,5438,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-533353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-leicester-tigers","9":"tag-prem-rugby","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-rugby-union","12":"tag-sport","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-standard","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}