Remember Me? Tom Kingston On the Comeback Trail
by Paul Cook -
It is only when Tom Kingston checks himself slightly mid-conversation, chokes back a potential tear and concedes “You can probably see that I’m pretty disappointed and frustrated right now,” that the pain and emotion etched across his young face offer me a brief window into the darkness he has endured over the last two injury-plagued years of his fledgling career.
Having first interviewed the exceedingly polite, fiercely intelligent and hugely talented Kingston when he was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 19-year-old with the rugby world at his feet back in 2010, seeing such raw emotion five years later was a sobering reality check as to the fragility of a rugby player’s existence.
We were chatting after he had just completed his second successive 80 minutes for Sydney University, against West Harbour, just over a month ago. Having returned from Melbourne, where he is officially still contracted to the Rebels until September but certain to be elsewhere in 2016, the