Mail Sport Extreme: Meet the Renfrewshire brothers who are taking their futures in sport into their own Hands... and have an eye on the Olympics too!

With the Six Nations kicking off this weekend, many youngsters will be watching on, dreaming of what might be. Not for Rory and Angus Semple, however. They decided to turn their back on the oval ball for something a little bit different. Handball - not rugby - is the more appealing option for both brothers, with Angus opting out of Scottish Rugby’s youth pathway and electing for a future in the lesser-known sport.

The 17-year-old will head for Denmark in the summer to spend a year at the prestigious Aarhus Sport Academy, honing his skills and developing his game, with one eye on the future, while his older brother will remain in Scotland to focus on his studies but will not give up on his own handball dream. Earlier this month, the pair represented Great Britain at the International Handball Federation Men’s Under-20s trophy, Rory in the Under-20s and Angus in the Under-18s equivalent in Kosovo.

When the pair first got into the sport - similar to football in that players use their hands rather than feet to pass, dribble and score - they never could have imagined that it would take them this far. Renfrewshire brothers Rory and Angus Semple dream of representing Great Britain at the Olympics. Angus left Scottish Rugby's youth pathway to pursue a career in handball. With handball on the Olympic schedule, the Renfrewshire duo are targeting not just glory, but a bright future as well.

‘Great Britain haven’t qualified for an Olympics since 2012, so it would be very hard to bring that standard up to that level,’ Rory says, with Angus adding: ‘It would be amazing to play at the Olympics, we just haven’t worked out how to do that. Rory goes on: ‘GB has given us so much and representing them at senior level would be incredible. ‘Looking to the future, playing in the Netherlands is a big dream of ours. The standard there is so high, and we’d be pitting ourselves against some of the best handball players in Europe.

'We’re obviously early in our respective careers, but to play in the Netherlands one day would mean that our own games have progressed to a level where we can mix it with the best. It’s a good target - but a long way off at present. ‘We have Dutch ancestry on our father’s side, so it’d be cool to live there and explore the culture too. ‘We love playing for GB, and our focus is to continue progressing through the ranks, and hopefully one day play for the full side.

‘Handball is still a minority sport in the UK, and GB hasn’t qualified for the Olympics since London 2012. It’d be beyond our wildest dreams to turn out in the same GB side at the Olympics - but that must be the aim. ‘In the short term, we just need to be the best we can be and do everything we can to help create GB side that can compete on the international stage.’. While Rory, 20, remains in Scotland to finish his studies at Heriot Watt University, 17-year-old Angus will head for Denmark this summer to spend a year at the prestigious Aarhus Sport Academy.

Angus and Rory hope the sport can grow in Scotland and more kids will get involved. While the younger brother admits it was hard to leave rugby behind, he feels it was the right thing to do for him now - and with his own future in mind. Angus says: ‘I was offered a kind of agreement that pretty much writes you off from any other sports. So you sign the agreement that basically says that you’re owned by the SRU now, so if you want to play a different sport, they get the choice whether I do that. That wasn’t for me.

‘I was loving rugby, but I was loving handball just as much, if not more, and I could see more of a career in that because of how many injuries there are in rugby and just with how I was doing in handball. ‘I went and had a look and loved it (Aarhus Sport Academy). It’ll be a year out next year for me, I’ll leave in August and it’s pretty much two semesters which are almost half a year (each), hopefully becoming better and getting into a really good team at Under-19 level, and potentially older and better.’.

With over 2,000 goals for club and country between them, neither Semple could have predicted how well handball would work out for them. It was in 2016 that the duo arrived at Kelvinside Academy where handball had been running following the success of a class trip to London 2012 where the pupils fell in love with the sport. Growing the game and getting more kids involved is the priority but Rory accepts that football and rugby would be hard to replace at that level.

Rory says: ‘Kelvinside are doing everything they can to make handball an attractive option for the kids and saying: “This is a great sport, get involved”. 'It would be so much better if more schools around Scotland had that same attitude but situations aren’t always the same in every school. ‘A lot of schools like football and rugby, but the more kids we can get playing handball, the larger it will grow in Scotland.