“In five years, I picture myself as a Super Bowl winning starter for an NFL team,” Tyrese Johnson-Fisher tells me after another tough training session.

His mission is clear; reach the NFL.

The 25-year-old Londoner and former professional rugby union winger, who is backing the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s Super Bowl 59, has always been tipped for greatness but his journey to this point has been far from simple.

It’s a story of dealing with overnight stardom, sacrifice and setbacks – and now, by his own admission, it’s now or never.

“It would mean absolutely everything,” Tyrese, who made his name as rugby’s first viral wonderkid, tells me as we discuss his NFL dream which could see him earn a multi-million pound contract.

“It’s not even just about me, it’s what I’m trying to do in the future, it’s for my community, it’s for my family.

“They’ve seen the struggle, they’ve seen how much work I put in and they’ve seen all the sacrifices.

“It can’t be all for nothing.”

Tyrese, from Croydon, is currently living at home with his grandmother as he makes this final push for NFL glory, relying on his savings and some freelance social media work whilst training six days a week.

He’s hired an Olympic sprinting coach after being told to get quicker by the Jacksonville Jaguars following an opportunity to train with the Florida team last year.

“The goal is so high, it’s a sacrifice that has to be made now,” the powerful 95kg running back who can squat 270kg explains.

“Because if it doesn’t get made now, I don’t want to get to 35 and wish that I made these sacrifices that I’m making at 25.”

In 2015, Tyrese was the name on the lips of every rugby fan.

He had just gone viral playing for Oakham U15s, bulldozing his way to four scintillating tries in a national school championships semi-final.

It is still to this day the most-watched video on England Rugby’s YouTube channel – incredibly, even more than Jonny Wilkinson’s iconic World Cup-winning drop-goal in 2003.

But going viral was both a gift and a curse for Tyrese. It led to sponsorship deals with brands like Adidas and as he tells me, it also took a toll.

“It’s taken me a long time to really recover mentally,” he says reflectively.

“People had this perception that I made it and because they had that perception, they treated me like I made it.

“I think it definitely changed the way people were around me. It just made me very wary and conservative when it came to my interactions with people.”

Tyrese has had many crossroads in his life.

Whilst his talents on the sports pitch were still emerging, he was also a natural on stage and was considering going to drama school.

Growing up he was a national sprint champion and, at the time, the second fastest 14-year-old the UK has ever produced.

He was balancing his promising track career with rugby, before focusing on the sport as part of the Leicester Tigers academy set up.

But Tyrese fell out of love with the sport that plunged him into the spotlight.

The NFL dream was calling and in 2018 he became one of the first European running backs to be selected for a Division 1 college, learning how to play the game “properly”.

As an American Football novice, Tyrese had to “play catch up” against players who had been playing their whole life.

He briefly returned to the rugby world with Bristol Bears, before going back to his American football career.

But this required another transition for Tyrese, swapping the rugby pitch for the office in a recruitment 9-5 job while training and ringing American universities at night looking for opportunities.

He was initially offered a place at another Division 1 college, only for the COVID lockdown to scupper those plans, before eventually joining Copiah-Lincoln Community College – which featured in Netflix’s Last Chance U docuseries – in Mississippi.

He twice took part in trials for the NFL’s International Player Pathway (IPP) programme, which saw former Wales winger Louis Rees-Zammit sign for reigning Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs, but narrowly missed out.

Tyrese, who has also played for teams in the new European Football League, says on one occasion he was told his numbers were top 10 for his position but wasn’t chosen due to an “oversaturation” of running backs.

His dedication and sacrifice to the NFL dream cannot be underestimated.

At the start of last year he moved to Texas to work with one of the best coaches around, combining his tough training with hours in a remote corporate job, before returning to the UK to get his speed up to scratch.

Last week he ran a personal best in the 40-yard dash (4.32s), down from 4.8s when he began the sprint training in October.

His coach Ryan Freckleton tells me the improvement is “unheard of in such a short amount of time”.

Tyrese says: “Hopefully by April if I run a 4.2s, you can’t deny me. Nobody runs a 4.2s and doesn’t get a chance to be looked at by an NFL team.”

He adds: “It’s kind of NFL or broke.

“I definitely believe I’m good enough. It’s just simply the right coach with the right scheme understanding how to get the best out of me.

“I think this is the perfect time to get seen.”

For now Tyrese remains patient, waiting for the chance to come and, if it does, he is more ready than ever before.