LONDON -- Warren Abrahams strides confidently into the hotel beneath Twickenham's salubrious South Stand. He has just finished a meeting with his bosses at England Rugby, and pauses momentarily on several occasions during our hour-long chat to greet fellow patrons.
The 33-year-old from Kraaifontein appears totally at home in his surroundings, and he has reason to be. Abrahams juggles his work within the England Sevens programme with a full time coaching role at the Harlequins academy, while he and partner Hannah are also expecting the arrival of their first child next month.
"It's pretty exciting," he tells ESPN of his current situation. "I can work with a 13-year-old in the morning, work with a first-team player later that day and in between I could work with a world-class Sevens player.
"You can literally bounce around the whole spectrum on a daily basis."
But it hasn't always come so easy.
Abrahams admits to being naïve when first making the decision to move lock, stock and barrel from Cape Town to the UK a decade ago. That call had been made almost in spite, when a contract offer was not forthcoming from Western Province.
Emboldened by his success running the Durbanville Bellville academy, he decided to jet off and see what Northern Hemisphere rugby had to offer. There was just one problem; Abrahams travelled to London with nothing secured -- no job, no club, no plan.
"I love to take risks," he adds. "I had a bit of savings and I took a gamble. I had nothing sorted, I had to work incredibly hard to get where I am.
"The first job I got offered here was with a broadband company. I didn't even know what broadband was when I arrived! I lasted 24 hours and went 'right, this is not for me. I need to be on a rugby field'."
Luckily for Abrahams, he was quickly taken on by a company that employs Southern Hemisphere coaches and travelled the UK for six weeks, teaching kids the knowledge he had gleaned from his time with Durbanville and Stellenbosch University.
He settled into life in the shadow of royalty, in Windsor, but his struggles continued as he came to terms with the tepid weather, and unforeseen visa restrictions.
The terms of his stay in the UK meant he could play no higher than the fifth tier of English rugby, National League 3. Coming from an elite level in South Africa, turning out for Windsor -- a club that can count Zinzan Brooke among its former players -- in front of a handful of members was not going to give him the competitive buzz he craved, so he began to focus to coaching.
Next came a teaching job at a school in nearby Maidenhead. Ostensibly hired to coach the rugby team, the 23-year-old Abrahams was also given his own year eight form class to take care of despite having no qualifications or background in the field.
"That's how you learn I suppose," Abrahams says as he reflects on a period he enjoyed. He was still able to play on the weekends, and his summer holidays gave him the time to travel to North Otago, New Zealand to get a feel for another environment entirely.
It was a schedule he followed for several years until, in 2010, he decided to give professional rugby in South Africa one last shot.
Abrahams' return lasted just five games, however, before a serious knee injury forced him to hang up his playing boots for good, aged just 27. He arrived back in England with a renewed passion for the training pitch, and bar a playing comeback with Richmond during the 2015-16 season, his career has been "all about the coaching" ever since.
"At that time I was always coaching," he says. "I was really passionate about the coaching."
Passionate he may have been, but he was required still to bide his time. Abrahams joined Harlequins in 2011, but with no coaching role available at that time he initially worked as part of the club's inner-city community programme.
His success in that role earned him a full time job in the Harlequins academy in 2013, but there have also been roles with Millwall Rugby Club, Richmond Women and Lithuania Sevens. The latter forced Abrahams to devise his own language in which to communicate with his players, and resulted in success on a European level.
It also, ultimately, led to the job he now enjoys within the England Sevens programme in which he works with players who have not been selected for the World Rugby Sevens Series squad. That academy team has won invitational tournaments around the world, while Abrahams also coached England to a silver medal at the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas in June.
"I had to literally work my way in the long way round to get where I am today," he says.
"I probably look back on my playing career and ask myself 'what if' questions. But then if I look back now with what I've achieved with Lithuania, what I've achieved thus far with England, the success we've had with the academy team -- last year we beat South Africa in Dubai, in the final, we won Singapore -- the success I've had so far with Harlequins as well.
"It doesn't always work out the way you want it to work out but if you don't take risks you won't know."
Like many young South Africans, Abrahams' love of rugby was crystalised in the moment former Springbok captain Francois Pienaar accepted the Rugby World Cup from Nelson Mandela in 1995. So, now that his gambles have started to pay professional dividends, what does the future hold?
"At the time I didn't really know what coaching was about but it just looked amazing being part of it," Abrahams, who remains in regular contact with Stomers defence coach Paul Treu, says. "So, yeah there's a dream -- the dream is being part of the Springbok coaching team one day. To go back home and coach your own country.
"But for the time being, I'm with Harlequins, I'm with England Sevens, I'm just keeping my head down. I just want to be the best coach that I can possibly be.
"To be a world-class coach, that drives me, but most importantly I'm a people's coach. I coach people, I want everyone that I work with I want to make them better in some way."