Leroy Houston© Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images

Before Bath's match against London Irish, the man on the PA was getting towards the tail end of the Bath team and it went a bit like this: "Number six: Sam Burgess" - applause, cheering. "Number seven: Francois Louw" - applause, cheering. And then silence as he cleared his vocal chords to boom out an elongated version of Leroy Houston's name. "And Number eight .... LEROOOYYY HOUSSSTTOONN" - the crowd goes bonkers.

It has happened all season at the Recreation Ground whenever Houston has been in the side. On one hand the ebb and flow of his name lends itself to drawing out the vowels but it is also an act of heralding an Australian who the Bath faithful have taken in as one of their own.

"I've never had that in my entire rugby career," Houston tells ESPN. "It gives me goose bumps. I've come from humble beginnings and now when people know your name it kind of freaks me out. But the support they throw at me is just unbelievable. It is real cool."

Though he has found a home from home at Bath, it hasn't always been easy for Houston. On two occasions he has contemplated walking away from the game.

Houston sacrificed the end of his teenage years for rugby from the age of 16. He was a back-rower of immense promise and caught the eye of Ewen McKenzie at the Waratahs. "I was very young, I was in their academy when I was 16 so I was there until I was 18 or 19," he says. "Then I got a full contract." But the transition from promising player to professional didn't sit right at first. "I was in a bit of a crisis at that age," he recalls. "I had done so much rugby, I wanted to stand back and really think about what was the best option for me. I had a year off when I was 20, 21 so I just wanted to gather my thoughts.

"I went and played rugby league with my brothers and cousins. I found I had lost the fun in rugby due to the sacrifices I struggled with at that age. I just wanted to enjoy life. But when I hit 21 I found I missed the game so I ended up going to the Reds."

At the Reds he linked up with his old mentor McKenzie - the old Wallabies coach has a knack of steering Houston's career from afar - and was part of the team that won the Super Rugby title in 2011. But it was bittersweet for Houston. As the season came to an end, with the Reds chasing the title, he had already agreed to join Bordeaux. The 25-year-old Houston still wanted to see the world.

The move to Bordeaux sounded idyllic in theory, but it was different in practice."I was shell-shocked when I got there," Houston says." It was a totally different world, a big contrast in how they play and train. There was so much more bish, bosh, bash and it was hard to adapt to that. They did full-on training the day before the game.

"It was tough there; it was the first time I ever questioned myself and whether I was good enough to play rugby. I wasn't playing, I was getting injured a lot. I couldn't prove what I had. Every time I did play, I didn't feel like I was influencing the game, I was just hitting rucks and whenever I had the ball, I was getting chopped down. That's when I started questioning myself, for the first time in my whole life. I felt real bad to get that far. I was down in the dumps for a while."

Houston's original contract with Bordeaux was a one-year deal with a one-year extension option but they "pulled the pin" at the end of his first season. He returned to Australia, full of self-doubt.

Then came an unlikely saviour - PROD2's Colomiers. "I was grasping for anything," he says. "They offered me a contract but the amount was low. I could've stayed in Australia and worked in the mines and got better money. So I was weighing that all up. But thankfully my agent, Richard, told me to go and enjoy myself."

And then came the call from Bath. In a season where they brought in George Ford and Jonathan Joseph, Houston's was an under-the-radar piece of recruitment, but it was a legacy from Gary Gold's tenure at the club. "Through my Super XV days I had played against Gary when he was at the Stormers and through those times he had become good mates with Ewen McKenzie," Houston says. "He told me he rang Ewen and this was when I was playing PROD2 and to be honest, I was a big lump. But Ewen spoke highly of me, GG said he gave me massive raps.

"I remember being shown round Farleigh House for the first time. Oh my goodness, I've never seen anything like it. I was struck by how cool it was. I thought it was the Hogwarts of rugby. It was like Harry Potter but with rugby players. I was trying to hold back my excitement and play it cool so as soon as I got back to my phone and I was in private, I phoned my missus and told her how it was essentially the best place ever."

Two seasons on and Houston is still there. "I was so happy they decided to keep me. If your partner's happy, you're happy. She loves it here and I love the way they play rugby. It sounds silly, but you take that for granted as Bath just want to score tries."

The elephant in the room is international recognition. Though the Wallabies have left the door ajar for some of their exiles, Houston's two Australia 'A' caps are well short of fulfilling the requirements. He did look at the possibility of playing for Scotland through his Scottish father but the carrot of the Wallabies and that dream is still a pulling force.

Houston is tied down to Bath for the next two years, so Australia dreams will have to wait. He wants silverware to accompany the goose bumps. "I knock on wood as I'm so lucky but it would be great to win the Premiership and Champions Cup here. I'm hoping for those goals. I have another two years here and that's what I want to achieve."