Life after League: Warriors old-boy Joel Tomkins opens up on passion for mental health alongside job as firefighter

Tomkins, now 36, won every honour with Wigan across two spells with the club totalling 12 seasons.

He left in 2018 to join Hull KR and later moved to the Dragons to reunite with younger brother Sam in Perpignan, guiding the French outfit to their first-ever Grand Final appearance in 2021.

They fell to an agonising 12-10 defeat to St Helens but Tomkins had no time to wallow in pity, with a fitness test to join Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue services just days later.

“It was a bit surreal really being stood on a drill yard on the Monday morning doing a bleep test while the rest of the lads would have been out having an end-of-season do,” he joked.

“I went through the recruitment process from that day and I started my 16-week training course at the start of 2022.

“It was a pretty quick transition, but I think it was probably better that way.

“I didn’t have much time to sit around, I just got straight into the next chapter.

“I signed a deal to play a season at Leigh but when I found out I had been successful in my application, I spoke to them and explained that I decided that I was going to hang the boots up and in hindsight I think that was the right time.

“It’s a completely different adrenaline rush, but if you turn out to an emergency, the similarities are that you’re all working towards a common goal and it’s probably a bit more important than winning a game of rugby when you turn up and it’s a life-and-death situation.”

The work schedule also allows the 2017 World Club Challenge winner to deliver educational mental health sessions for charity ‘Sporting Chance’ – set up by ex-Arsenal captain Tony Adams - to young footballers.

“Mental health is something I’m quite passionate about,” Tomkins continued.

“It’s really important to me.

"When I first started playing rugby and throughout the majority of my career, it wasn’t really something that was spoken about.

“For me, obviously I had a couple of well-publicised incidents off or on the field where I just felt like, especially with social media, it can really get on top of you.

“I probably didn’t actually realise at the time how much it was affecting my mental health and the way it impacted my behaviour.

“It was towards the back end of my career that I did a bit of work with them to sort that out basically and when I retired I felt I was in a good place and that’s when I thought, through lived experience, I could give some sound advice to young lads now.

“I felt like maybe if I had that education at that time in my career, I potentially could have made a few different decisions throughout my career.

“I’m really enjoying that and I get a lot out of it and being in the fire services enables me to work for the charity and I think that’s quite important.”