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“It’s going good, it’s great to see all the guys again.”

Photo by Matt Rourke / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The fitness demands of the two sports are very different, but Zaruba isn’t feeling too bad — when he returned to B.C. in late summer, he made sure to add a sevens-focused fitness component so that if his path veered back to rugby, he’d be ready.

“I think I’m in a good position,” he said of his fitness.

He does admit to some sadness over his NFL door closing, giving a very honest answer.

“At the end of the day I didn’t get to leave on my own terms,” he said of injuring his hamstring.

“It was a tough thing that I was trying to do. And with things like this, sometimes you only get one shot … still, I can’t get too hung up on it.”

The football experience may have ended badly, but the overall journey was positive.

“There’s a lot (of things he learned about himself),” he said. “I have a lot more confidence in myself as an athlete. Being able to see how the other side operates, it gave me a glimpse of how close I was.

“(Now) I have a lot of confidence that I have something very valuable to give a team.”

Photo by RICH LAM / PNG

A remarkable statement from a player who has quite the catalogue of dazzling displays of speed and power on the World Rugby sevens circuit.

Zaruba had kept in touch with Canadian men’s rugby sevens coach Damian McGrath while he pursued his NFL dream.

“He’s had my back and has been supporting me through the whole process,” he said of the coach, who coached him in 2016-17, his last rugby sevens season before the NFL jump.

Fully fit again last month, the time having arrived to make a decision on whether to go back to rugby, the Eagles gave Zaruba an honest answer: With all their tight ends healthy, there was little chance they’d have a spot for him. Rugby was probably the smart way to go.

“It was an unexpected aligning to the clouds,” McGrath admitted about getting Zaruba back in the fold.

The coach’s delight at getting such a talented player back in his group is undeniable. The Canadians finished ninth on the World Rugby Sevens Series in 2017-18, a rather remarkable finish given how thin their squad depth was.

And for this season, with the sevens program folded into the XVs program, the options remain narrow, especially with a trio of veterans in Harry Jones, Mike Fuailefau and Phil Jones out with long-term injuries.

“He brings experience, for a start, but he brings that x-factor because of his speed and size,” McGrath said of Zaruba.

When Zaruba was putting together a highlight reel for his agent to send to NFL teams, McGrath helped him out.

What he saw astounded even him.

“You forget some of the things he’d done.”