Former Hull rugby league star Nick Scruton's new career as police officer

A Hull rugby league star is now working as a policeman in some of the roughest areas of the region.

Hull KR Grand Final winner Nick Scruton, 37, was forced into early retirement following a soldier injury in 2019. But he isn't ready to take it just yet and has a new career as a police officer for West Yorkshire Police.

He admits tackling criminals helps him get over missing the adrenaline kick of taking on Super League's toughest opponents, The Mirror reports. Nick told The Mirror: "I’ve got to play to my strengths so if anybody big and nasty needs locking up they send me in. And I do like that.

"I still get an adrenaline buzz which is one of the reasons I wanted to join the police. I’ll never be able to replace that feeling of charging in from a kick-off and knowing you’re going to get bashed.

“But when you’re about to smash a door in and don’t know what’s on the other side, you get an adrenaline kick from that. Or a job comes in, there’s a bloke with a knife and nobody else to go so you’re in. I’m a PC response officer in Bradford West and we do have one of the highest crime rates in West Yorkshire so it keeps us busy. But I’m loving it. I’ve embraced the carnage.”

It’s a far cry away from Nick' planned career post rugby - that of a beekeeper thanks to his wife's uncle who was a commercial beekeeper. Nick said: "I really enjoyed it and could see myself dropping into that. I’d a five-year plan where I’d have a decent business to rely on when I retired from rugby.

“But I had the carpet pulled from under me when I had to retire just two years into that. I just wasn’t in a position to rely upon beekeeping. Plus I was terrible at it anyway!”

Nick is now urging current players to start thinking about life after rugby. He