To watch Tom Curry throw himself around a rugby pitch, taking the hits, dishing them out, you’d think you were watching a man hard-wired to run on adrenaline. Or pain, even. But England’s youngest captain in 34 years doesn’t tell it that way.

‘I have to admit that in my down time, I like to take things a little more slowly,’ says the genial 23-year-old flanker, who was handed the captain’s armband ahead of England’s first Guinness Six Nations game. ‘I love nothing more than walking my dog Toby in my local park.’

Curry, speaking shortly before he entered the England bubble (typically a media blackout, bar pre- and post-match duties), has tuned in for our video call from his parents’ house in Nantwich. It’s dark outside, gone tea time, and Toby the dachshund is asleep nearby – and in no mood to contribute to the conversation.

This, it seems, is Curry. Cross the white line at Twickenham wearing the red rose of England, or for his club Sale Sharks, and he’s a marauding, fearless back rower, who became the youngest player to start a game for England in 90 years when he made his debut against Argentina in 2017, aged just 18.

But away from the game, he’s easy-going Tom. His chat is peppered with mentions of his family and he still lives with his twin brother and fellow professional rugby player, Ben. The two grew up playing together and are both on the books at Sale.

One suspects that it’s this combination of man mountain and all-round nice guy that makes him just the right kind of tableau for Bremont, the no-nonsense British watch company that signed him up as an ambassador two years ago, to paint its story on.

Bremont, which became England Rugby’s official timing partner at the same time, famously tests its watches “beyond endurance”. Most of its activities outside of its Henley base involve cryogenically cold Arctic explorations or charging up Everest in doublequick time. And its most celebrated series of watches, the MB collection, is inspired by – and tested in – Martin-Baker ejector seats.

For obvious reasons, Curry can’t wear a watch doing his day job, but says he’s always been a watch man. ‘If I don’t wear a watch, I feel quite naked,’ he says, referring to those moments he’s in his civvies. As with rugby, his enthusiasm for watches was passed on by his father. ‘My dad had a great watch when I was growing up,’ he says. ‘He was going to sell it – but I bought it.

It wasn’t a Bremont, he notes a little sheepishly, before reasoning that he was attracted to the British watchmaker because of its patriotic mission. Last year, Bremont opened a watch manufacturing facility in the Oxfordshire countryside and introduced its first in-house movement, fulfilling two long-held ambitions of its founders Nick and Giles English. Prior to that, it had been half a century since Britain last boasted an industrial watchmaker.

‘It was a good fit for me as a person, not just a sportsman,’ he says. ‘I love what Nick and Giles have achieved in bringing watchmaking back to the UK.’ Outside game time during this year’s Six Nations, he’s been spotted sporting the new Bremont S300 RFU, a stainless-steel sports watch with the England rose subtly debossed on the dial.

Curry once swapped rucking and mauling for watch assembling. ‘I wasn’t bad, I’m not going to lie,’ he says. ‘But I was shaking the whole time. It’s not a full-time job for me.’

If it’s Bremont’s loss, it’s certainly England’s gain. Eddie Jones, England’s head coach, continues to heap praise on his young captain. ‘It’s frightening to think how good Tom could be by the 2023 Rugby World Cup,’ the Australian has said. ‘He’s become a real leader within our team.’

Back in his parents’ home, Curry appears unaffected by the accolades and his growing fame. Last season, he became the first player to be awarded the RFU’s England Men’s Player of the Year in back-to-back years. ‘I’m still the same person,’ he says, the warm smile unchanged.

bremont.com