The Southern Knights trudged off the field at the Greenyards with the taste of defeat and the knowledge that this was the end, for the third time, of a professional side in the Borders. With the same old problems rearing their heads, Scotland’s rugby heartlands are once again staring into the unknown. 

If you’re lucky, and find yourself in Oxford, the most English of England’s cathedral cities, look to the tree-lined river, and you might catch a glimpse of a rugby superhero deftly punting her way through the waters. Maud Muir is a prop of many talents.

It was just a simple two-on-one. A try now, with the clock in the red, and Great Britain’s core status on the 2025 SVNS series would be secure. But, one misplaced pass later, and their golden chance was gone. Had GB just fumbled their place at sevens’ top table, or even, the future of their programme? 

When you imagine how negotiations to buy a rugby club would go, you might think of secretive boardroom meetings filled with suit-and-tie wearing executives. But in the case of the Sale Sharks takeover in 2016, it all started, at least the first inklings of it, in a New York apartment over a chicken chow mein. 

When Ollie Chessum saw his foot at an angle it wasn’t supposed to be, he thought his dream was over. He knew the long grind of rehab was ahead, but what he didn’t yet know was whether or not he could make it back in time for the World Cup. 

After five promotions in just over a decade, Dings Crusaders looked to have finally found their ceiling, relegated from National 3 at the first time of asking. That was, until they were given a lifeline. As Wakefield folded, the club from the humblest of backgrounds had a second chance, one they weren’t going to let slip. 

After suffering a third ACL tear by the age of 24, Tatyana Heard lost her Red Roses contract and, with it, the job she’d always wanted. As the pandemic hit, instead of representing her country, she was getting up at 3am for another shift at the local Asda.

Just two caps is scant reward for a former choir boy turned ‘New Zealand number six’ who’s been as consistently excellent as Ted Hill. Perhaps he played for the wrong club: Ted never thought so. He’d not been paid for four weeks when his agent persuaded to him face the reality of the situation. He eventually left, hoping that one day there’d be a club to return to...

The champions of England knew little about the Devon fishing town, or what the locals could do on a rugby pitch but, needs must, a game had to be played and, besides, what did they need to worry about? They were Bath, it was Brixham that should be worried. 

Despite their raw talent, few believe that Fiji could ever win a rugby world cup. But now, driven by an Aussie named Mick, the flying Fijians are finally beginning to think the impossible might just be possible.

He hadn’t seen the jersey for decades, but it still bore the scars inflicted by opponents’ studs over sixty years before. Now reunited with his beloved red shirt, the memories come flooding back for Irishman Noel Murphy, British & Irish Lion #404.

When Nick Easter arrived at Chinnor in December 2022, they had won just two games all season, leaving them at the wrong end of the National 1 table. In his first game in charge, they beat the league leaders, beginning a climb to a mid-table finish. The next campaign, they took the title and with it a place in the Championship.

When the message came that her grandad had died on the day of the World Cup final, Hannah Botterman had to push it out of her mind. On the other side of the world, and sporting an injured knee that had ruled her out of the tournament, she could only watch on as England’s World Cup destiny slipped away. 

Amid the deciduous woods of Occitanie in southern France you can find butcher’s-broom, a plant that transformed the lives of the people in Castres, bringing with it not only a homeopathic remedy, but also helping a small-town rugby club to become the best in the country.

Dean Richards crept up to the telephone box unnoticed. The man inside had a sawn-off shotgun he was threatening to use on a former lover, but the number eight took him by surprise, pinning and disarming him in the process. This was life as a ‘bobby’ in the 1980s, so no wonder professional rugby was a breeze.

When Gwenllian Pyrs was offered a professional contract with Wales, there was only one response. But, once the dust settled, it dawned on her she’d have to leave home: leave the village, the farm, her family, and, more importantly, Dot and her four siblings.

When Pat Lam needed cover for the world-class Charles Piutau, he didn’t look for yet another galactico, but instead turned to Rich Lane, a part-time landscape gardener from Bedford with a point to prove in the Premiership.

Once, they dominated Welsh rugby, defeating the greats of the game, from Bath to Australia and the All Blacks. Then, Newport RFC were removed from the game’s top table, eventually losing their home too. But, as they look to mark 150 years with the dawn of a new era, one thing remains the same, they ‘still hate those black and blue bastards’. 

Of all the kickers who lined up in France, it wasn’t the Sextons, Farrells or even Pollards that truly captured the imagination; it was the sixteen-stone Portuguese hooker. Mike Tadjer was the hero the Rugby World Cup needed.

The first-ever Olympic rugby tournament wasn’t supposed to be won by the Americans, just as they weren’t supposed to win the inaugural women’s Rugby World Cup. But they did. And then? Pipe bombs, Dan Lyle, MLR, expelled champions, bankruptcy, sevens success, fifteens failure, and two Rugby World Cup bids. This is American rugby. It’s anything and everything, but never dull.