I mean this in the nicest way possible but Josh Bayliss and Kieran Verden are massive nerds. Don’t be too offended because the Bath duo would probably agree – at least when we’re talking cars. I’ve been in the pair’s workshop for all of five minutes and I’m completely lost.

Josh has used the term “three-litre L322s” twice while Kieran has wandered off on a tangent about how there was a period of Land Rover Defenders that featured 2.8-litre BMW engines specifically for the South African market.

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What to expect in this article?

• Bath Rugby duo Josh Bayliss and Keiran Verden spend time off the field restoring Land Rovers
• Bayliss and Verden discuss their love of cars and how it helps them become better rugby players
• They also introduce us to their business Over & Under that specialises in restoring old Land Rovers
• Rugby World visits the pair for the day in their workshop just outside of Bath

When not winning @premrugby titles, @BathRugby duo Josh Bayliss & Keiran Verden spend their time tinkering under the bonnet of Land Rovers… pic.twitter.com/jqaUPAx6VV

— Rugby World (@Rugbyworldmag) May 19, 2026

I just nod along and take a sip of the Nespresso coffee that they made me on arrival. It’s a wet and windy day down in the West Country but inside a small farm building close to Trowbridge, the heating is on, the paint-splattered radio is blaring and for a few hours most days, Bayliss and Verden are not rugby players, they are fully-fledged Land Rover restoration technicians.

Life after rugby

Plenty of rugby players across the PREM have side hustles, from coffee shops to wellness centres, actively encouraged by those around them as they realise the finite length of a professional athlete’s career and the limiting opportunities that exist within the sport when their playing days end.

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For many of those players, their business outside rugby is just a business. For Bayliss and Verden, Over & Under is the culmination of two parallel lifelong passions. “I have always been around Land Rovers,” Bayliss tells Rugby World.

“My grandparents had a farm down in Gloucestershire and I remember being obsessed with machinery. As soon as I could, I bought my first Series 3 Land Rover Defender. It was broken, didn’t run, so I fully restored it. It’s been a passion ever since.”

Verden tells a similar tale. “My older brother was a mechanic and still helps out family and friends with things they need,” he says. “So from when I can remember, he would be out working on cars and I was just handing him tools. My best mate is also a farmer, so we had all sorts of vehicles down there – tractors, quads, cars – and we’d just be tinkering around.

“I love being able to fix things. When I got my first car, I’d spend every weekend tinkering with it. There were some questionable choices for modifications. I started on a Ford Fiesta, then got my first BMW at 18 which I’ve upgraded a few times since.”

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The business origin story

While both came through the ranks at Bath, Bayliss and Verden spent their free time independently fettling away on various cars that they had either bought themselves or were owned by mates. Bayliss had an uncle, who owned a farm near the club’s training centre in Farleigh, who allowed the flanker to use one of the spare outbuildings as a makeshift workshop.

One day, knowing Verden also liked to work on cars, Bayliss invited his prop team-mate down to take a look at a Land Rover he had just invested in back in late 2023. A decision which ended up being the spark for the eventual business. “We first worked together on the old Land Rover Classic and realised we worked really well together,” Verden explains.

“Yeah, we got my Classic to a rolling chassis, engine fully rebuilt, axles fully restored,” adds Bayliss, who won his 16th Scotland cap in the 50-40 win over France in March. “They were before the days of us having a car ramp. You’d just jack a car up on axle stands and I’d crawl under on the car trolley, fiddling around or being dripped on with water. We’d be bench-pressing gearboxes off the floor into place. I’m happy we’ve now got the ramps to get under the car now!

“Fast-forward to now and we’ve had one or two big projects on the go at all times since. Right now, we’re working on two Defender TD5s as we speak. A 300 Tdi is already lined up as the next project, probably in the summer. I want to get my original Land Rover on the road as a company show vehicle too, to show people what we can do.

“The really nice thing has been how we’ve grown organically. All our business has been word of mouth, friends and then friends of friends, people we’ve met through rugby too. We’ve opened so many doors from playing rugby.”

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Since that day in 2023, the pair have worked on more than 25 restoration jobs, as well as countless smaller maintenance projects and interior refits. They work closely with Land Rover parts manufacturing experts Exmoor Trim, who have become a steady client, including getting the pair to put together their latest show car.

The one-time farm building now looks like a reputable workshop with two car ramps and countless bits of equipment, including huge toolboxes and a coordinated parts bay. There is even a small kitchen complete with custard creams and mugs that have seen better days. All that is missing is the personalised overalls, although Bayliss insists they are coming.

Teammates for clients

While Rugby World are visiting Over & Under, the Land Rovers of two Bath team-mates sit among those on the ramp. Welsh tighthead Archie Griffin has asked for a full refurbishment job on an old Defender, including ripping out the front seat wells to make a bigger driver seat space to facilitate the 120kg prop.

Opposite is Ben Spencer’s converted Defender, which doubles as his mobile coffee shop, Grass & Roots. The mods include a reinforced rear axle to transport the 500-litre water tank needed for brewing flat whites on the go. Spencer has been experiencing issues with his battery which Bayliss and Verden believe is down to some wiring issues.

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A local Land Rover expert called Phil comes in while we’re all chatting to pop the bonnet and take a look at the issue. Part of his payment is lunch from a nearby sandwich shop. As he works away, Bayliss tells us that the pair’s side interest in car restoration has become so popular that the queue of players hoping to get them working on their own cars has grown massively.

“I really want to get a few lads on the tools, maybe some of the academy lads, because we’re getting busier and busier,” jokes Bayliss. “Although I’m not trusting Alfie Barbeary near a car. He would be really good for morale in the workshop but he isn’t touching anything. Finn Russell can’t bring his Ferrari down here either, too many potholes!”

Phil interrupts the chat to ask if anyone fancies a quick rewiring job, which Bayliss jumps at. That gives me a chance to ask Verden about the viability of the business. Is this something that could replace the rugby day job one day? For Verden, particularly, who finds himself used as a squad player by Head of Rugby Johann Van Graan, having something to walk into post-career is vital.

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“I want to take the business to a place where it’s a viable business, 100%. With rugby, injuries and stuff, you can never predict what is around the corner. You have to be prepared for all eventualities. The RPA have been great in helping us too as they’re so encouraging of us in doing stuff beyond rugby, like running a buisness,” says Verden, 27.

“We enjoy this, it’s our passion, but it is putting us in a good position for later life. I will be here when I can, thinking about the more I put in now, the better position I will be in post-rugby but also using rugby to help the business. The Exmoor Trim contact came through rugby and it’s already opening doors up for us.”

On return from his wiring job, Bayliss adds: “I’ve always been conscious that rugby will not last forever and it’s important to have a passion for something else. I went to university but it has always been this more practical stuff that I enjoy and this is something we can look to build.”

‘Everything is fixable’

Seeing two players with a proper passion is quite refreshing. Try to talk to some current players about life outside of the game and they can give you a blank stare as if you had asked them an alien question. Bayliss and Verden cannot stop talking about life away from the field and in the workshop.

“The eyes light up when we get an old 30-year-old Land Rover come in that has seen better days,” Bayliss says. “I think the beauty of it is that if you get a car with decent bones, that you can see beyond the surface rust or mould, and you can see what it can become, that is our passion. Everything is fixable. If you’ve got an idea in your head of what you want that car to be, within reason, we can make that happen.

“They all have character. People don’t love Land Rovers because they run perfectly, they don’t. They all have their individual quirks. I take some of them apart and you’ll see 20 different-sized bolts and it won’t make any sense but it’s so much fun. They go wrong and they will but you can fix them!

“We sometimes run into things that stump us. We might not understand why things are not working but we’ll put the time in and research how to fix it. One of us will have the answer to making it work, which could be as easy as it being the wrong ratchet size. On the bus to Newcastle away, we’ll read parts books and catalogues rather than watch films. I’ll jot down what I need on an A4 pad.”

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Both ultimately see the world of Land Rover restoration as the perfect escape from the high-pressure environment of professional rugby. Rather than draining them, the ability to get underneath a misfiring engine and troubleshoot issues before finding a solution energises the pair to being better rugby players.

After all, you cannot stress over lineout drills when you’re reconnecting a head gasket. “It’s a great escape from rugby,” says Verden. “We go to training, get our work done, then we can be down here and get away from rugby. It works for us both rather than just going home and twiddling your thumbs. It makes me feel fresh to play rugby because I take my mind away.”

“For me it helps my game on the field,” adds Bayliss. “It’s a welcome distraction when things aren’t going well or even for levelling you when things are going well.

“It’s great to pour some energy into. Whether it was a business or not, we’d be down here because this is our passion. But it being a business is great because maybe one day we can be full-time.”

‘Bath is a proper rugby city’

It also helps that life is good down in Somerset at the moment. A first English PREM title in almost three decades was flanked by triumphs in the European Challenge Cup and PREM Cup.  Van Graan’s team, spearheaded by Russell, is among the best club sides in the world right now. Four years after finishing bottom of the PREM table, Bath are playing box-office rugby which has reinvigorated a rugby city.

“We’re super conscious as we’ve been at the club when things have not been great,” says Bayliss, 28. “One of Johann’s big things is never too high, never too low. Don’t get carried away and bad times won’t last forever. Game days are good in the city at the moment, there is a great atmosphere. I never thought I’d see a parade like we did last year, the amount of people. The fan base in Bath stuck by us through some proper dodgy years and that is not lost on us. This is a proper rugby city.”

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I can sense that both men are itching to get back under the bonnet of one of the many cars hauled up for restoration, so decide to end the chat with one final question. What would be your dream build? “A dream build?” says Verden. “Great question. Well, that would be putting an M57 engine out of a BMW into a Defender. It happens all the time but we’ve never done it and I’d love to experience that.

“Oh yeah, with an 8hp gearbox,” Bayliss adds. “Yeah and then tune it pretty powerful. Then a BMW e30 restoration, putting a 2.5 engine in and turboing that too.” And not for the first time, the pair have lost me. See, proper nerds.