In January, Sam Burgess and his new bride Phoebe went on honeymoon to the Maldives. After a turbulent year in both of their lives, in which Burgess had played in a World Cup, moved house, moved sports and moved countries, it was the perfect escape.

But our subject is a man of action. And with few distractions to occupy him, Burgess soon found himself twiddling his thumbs. Until, that is, he looked out of his hotel room window one day and saw sharks circling in the water below. From that moment, his sole objective was to swim with those sharks, and to film it happening.

This, as Burgess remembers with a chuckle now, proved harder than anticipated. “So I’d get my flippers on, put a GoPro on, and get in the water. But by the time we got ready, the sharks had all gone. I think my wife was a bit fed up with me, actually. Because all I wanted to do on our honeymoon was to be in the water next to a shark, in the wild.”