Damien Hoyland: 'There’s still plenty left in me'

There was almost a decade between Damien Hoyland’s last outing on a sevens field and last weekend’s HSBC SVNS season opener.

In the years since Hoyland’s last tournament for Scotland 7s in 2016, the 31-year-old has won five senior caps and become a parent. With a second on the way.

During his time in the programme Hoyland saw plenty of played pruned for Test rugby. Darcy Graham, Mark Bennett and Blair Kinghorn all spent time hopping the globe before graduation to the senior setup.

Hoyland was the oldest player contracted by Ciaran Beattie, Great Britain Sevens Director of Rugby, when it was announced that Scottish Rugby had taken oversight of the Great Britain Sevens programme and revived a full-time Scotland men’s sevens side.

Even if there was a couple of harsh training sessions to begin with, Hoyland has relished the opportunity to play rugby’s quickest, most exciting, format again.

“It’s been a while,” Hoyland told RugbyPass. “I was a fresh young pup down then, but things are a little different now.

“But when he (Beattie) gave be the call a few months ago, it was a huge opportunity. I couldn’t turn it down.

“I love playing sevens. I know how much it has benefitted everyone else; I’m in a slightly different spot right now and it’s a good opportunity for me to give back and help a lot of younger guys coming through.

“There’s also an opportunity for me to get stuck in as well, because there’s still plenty left in me.”

Last weekend at Dubai SVNS Hoyland and his teammates finished seventh overall.

It was by no means a perfect performance but there were positives to take. Wins against Spain and Argentina showed that the team were not too far off the pace. Not bad for a team that managed only five days together prior to jetting off to the UAE.

This weekend in Cape Town the team have been drawn in Pool A with Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa. There is little doubt that it will be a stern challenge at DHL Stadium.

But a challenge is exactly what Hoyland signed up to when he agreed to return to the revamped World Series.

The majority of Hoyland’s career with Edinburgh Rugby and Scotland was dogged with injury. Chunks of his 20s were wiped out with months spent on the physio bench and it has only been in the past two years, since his 2023 release from Edinburgh, that he has been able to find regular match minutes.

Most of those minutes have come with Major League Rugby club Old Glory DC where he has been a top performer in the USA’s capital.

Hoyland will split his time playing sevens with Old Glory next year when he takes part in a shortened MLR season.

 

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“It just freshened things up,” Hoyland said. “A new league, a new team. There’s potential to win the league, so the goal is always to win.

“I think freshening things up and being in a new environment certainly adds to the motivation. When you’ve got that – new teammates and new goals – it does bring more enjoyment out of it as well.

“I probably didn’t feel like I was under the microscope. Back at Edinburgh I was worrying about selection. But I knew I was always realistically going to play (at Old Glory), so there was that comfort of just going out and trying to express myself and enjoy myself. I loved it.”

A rediscovered love for minutes on the pitch has handed Hoyland the motivation for more. Partly because he has already had a peek at what life after rugby could look like.

To prepare himself for life after rugby the 31-year-old has done work experience with Edinburgh finance firms and currently runs Counter Coffee, a pop-up coffee cart that is hired by businesses and events.

“I’m quite fortunate in the sense that I’ve had a fair bit of experience outside of rugby now, potentially going into some finance work or coffee stuff,” Hoyland said.

“I feel like I’ve got a realistic interpretation of what post-rugby might look like. From doing that kind of experience, I know that I just want to keep on playing as long as possible.

“A lot of my friends who have finished playing rugby now, a lot of them were very adamant about finishing on their terms, I know a lot of them miss a lot of the aspects of rugby.

“My body still feels good, so I’m just going to keep going until either I can’t do it anymore, I’m not getting picked or an opportunity comes my way.

“I want to continue playing. The Olympics is something a couple of years away that I absolutely want to think about and maybe push for.

“I’ve got an opportunity to carry on playing. I’d be mad not to take it.”

By the time that the Olympic Games arrive in Los Angeles in three summers’ time Hoyland will be 34.

 

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It is a good goal to have. One that thousands of athletes across the world have scribbled in a notepad somewhere or as a daily reminder on their phones or pinned to their fridge with a magnet.

Before the wheels fall off that goal is the only thing on Hoyland’s mind. Along with slinging coffee from his pop-up cart.

That journey can only continue with solid performances on the pitch. One World Series stop at a time, it may all pass in a blink of an eye, but only keeping to the task at hand will ultimately be the difference.

“Everyone’s individual motives are quite different,” Hoyland said. “I’m 31 turning 32 and my motivation is completely different to someone who’s 19, 20.

“We spoke about non-negotiables – the standards we uphold and the accountability we have as a team – it is about trying to maintain the highest possible standards.

“We’re fortunate because we have got a team of guys that graft bloody hard for each other. My motivation is to play as long as possible. Train well. Play well in these tournaments. It is about, kind of, taking it week by week.”