FORMER Katharine Lady Berkeley's School pupil Ben Morgan is living the dream by training and playing with International rugby stars at the Scarlets.

The 20-year-old No 8 has signed a two-year development contract with the Welsh giants, who have British & Irish Lions stars Stephen Jones, Matthew Rees and Simon Easterby in their ranks.

Morgan will be playing semi-professional rugby with Llanelli in the Welsh Premiership next season as part of the contract, but will train with the Scarlets first team, who play in the Magners League.

He has been playing rugby since he was five-years-old and is the latest product of the successful youth system at Dursley rugby club.

Morgan, who scored a try at Twickenham in May to help Gloucestershire under-20s win the National Championship for the second year in a row, joined Cinderford for a year and then got involved with Cardiff Blues under-20s, who went on to become divisional champions.

It was playing for them against the Scarlets that he was spotted, and he opted to join them ahead of the Blues as they offered the opportunity to train alongside the first team.

It's been a lifelong ambition for Morgan to play professional rugby but he admits he doubted whether his dream would come true.

"It's always been a dream but I didn't think it would happen," he said.

"I've always wanted it but I never had the luck. When you're younger a lot of people have history going through the county and England age groups or Academy sides. I was thinking the longer and longer this goes on and the older and older I get, the less of a window is open, but when I found out I was over the moon. My parents are dead proud."

Morgan says he's been made to feel welcome at the Scarlets, and the thing that struck him most when he joined was the fitness of some of the players rather than being over-awed at some of the big names he was training with.

"For me it was not so much star struck but amazed at their fitness levels. I've been put through my paces and it's hard work.

"I didn't go there thinking of names. They are a nice bunch of people, it's like one big family."

Morgan, who grew up in Kingswood but has now moved to Llanelli, has set his sights high in his first season with the Scarlets.

He said: "There's a lad who is on the same contract as me but started last year and at the end of last season he made a couple of appearances off the bench for the first team so I'd like to think I could do that."

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