My first game for England was nothing like the games are today. It was played at a school in Toronto, Canada, with less than 50 spectators and the game wasn’t even streamed in those days. Since then, it’s been an absolute rollercoaster with some huge highs, and some really low lows.

My rugby journey began aged nine at Manchester Rugby Club, where I was the annoying sister wanting to join in with my brother’s team. I cannot speak highly enough of that first team, they always made me feel like just another teammate and never the girl on the team, which the opposition loved to point out. 

I was pretty late to rugby. I hadn’t even heard of the game, or even understood the rules until my mid 20s (and some would say I still don’t). But once I joined a club, my life genuinely changed. It taught me more than just the skill of the game, it taught me teamwork, discipline, respect, accountability, and most importantly, it was the inspiration for starting my own business!

Rugby has defined a huge part of me and my life since I was a teenager. I tried my hand at lots of sports growing up, playing mainly hockey throughout my early teenage years and when I was sixteen, I made the switch to rugby, playing in my first competitive adult season when I was 17 at Bracknell RFC.

From the age of 6, I grew up obsessed with netball, and when I say obsessed, I really mean it. From being a primary school kid, I used to demand an in-depth post game analysis with my mum in the car on the way home from matches.

I loved all sports as a kid and would participate in every after-school club possible, cricket, rugby, football, you name it, I would play it. Being from Twickenham, I was brought up in a rugby environment, my primary school being less than 100m away from the home of England rugby, Twickenham Stadium.

I first found rugby the way a lot of girls in my ‘generation’ did; totally by accident. Arriving at Oxford University from a Welsh state school and being thrown into essays, tutorials and all sorts of crazy traditions, I struggled to find somewhere to fit in.