When the tough Welsh valleys boys arrived at Butlin’s for the under-12s festival, they weren’t expecting to find themselves dump-tackled and danced around by a 12-year-old girl called Nolli. But that’s what happened. And, decades later, they can still feel every one of the bruises.

The ending wasn’t quite how he’d imagined it. Defeat in his final home game in front of an empty stadium; solace in a win for his 300th and final club appearance at Leicester; but then came the Barbarians... For Chris Robshaw, and everyone that knows him, it’s been emotional.

England Women are the best rugby team on the planet. Twenty three wins in a row. Two wins over New Zealand and a Six Nations campaign where they put fifty points on everyone except France. The World Cup is next. The secret? 90s Eurodance, second chances and accepting ‘the hurt’.

Spurred on by Mr Koko’s offer of 50 Rand for every try, a young South African cricketer called Zintle Mpupha, from a village deep in the bush, was inspired to not only captain her country at sevens, but also make history in the English game.

It was only five years ago that Jaz Joyce could “barely catch”, “barely pass” and only “got away with it” because she was fast. She also nearly quit five times. But she didn’t. Instead, she’s in the vanguard of a new era for Welsh women’s rugby.

In the space of little more than two teenage years, he went from sitting on the bench with Jamie Vardy against Man Utd to making a European rugby debut in Spain, scoring a try, kicking goals, breaking a leg and then losing his crutches to a drunk team doctor. Life has never been dull for Danny Care.

As the officers pounced on the prisoner, the iPhone popped up from between his bum cheeks, right in front of Poppy Cleall. Meanwhile, roughly around the same time, twin sister Bryony, was regaining her rugby mojo in Exeter. Fortunately for both, their stories would soon converge in the far more salubrious surroundings of Twickenham, in the white of England.

It’s been a long eighteen months in the life of Saracens. But after tears, trials and retribution, against Ampthill, things begin to feel normal again. The fans – and Alex Goode – are back home. Plus, Maro Itoje has visited Doncaster; Lucy Wray has made new Premiership friends; Mark McCall has pitted his wits against the Crusaders; and Jackson Wray has managed to survive a four-children lockdown.

Gareth Davies earned £700 for wearing Patrick boots, Mark Ring hoped for the same, but instead, was handed a ‘Geoff Hunt’ squash racquet. He doesn’t play squash. Something wasn’t right, and he was going to do something about it.

At sixteen he was told he wouldn’t play for Wales. At seventeen he played for Gloucester and trained with England. At eighteen he was called up by Wales and, at nineteen, he scored for them.Now, at twenty, he’s about to become a British & Irish Lion.By 21, Louis Rees-Zammit might just be completely unstoppable.

Six hundred years of liquorice history aren’t likely to be forgotten in a hurry. And rightly so. But in Pontefract they could soon have another history-maker in their midst, a World Cup-winning head coach.

He made his senior debut at seventeen for Huntingdon & District Rugby, and then would make debuts for Cambridge, Nottingham and Randwick before finally making his league entrance for Northampton Saints. Then, before many had even heard of George Furbank, he was playing for England, against France, in the Six Nations. No pressure.

A teammate, seeing yet another journalist waiting to speak to Adam Hastings, ponders aloud if he is “the only player that plays for Glasgow”. Dave Rennie, Warriors’ deadpan coach, wanders past, sipping a mug of piping-hot soup, and offers his own suggestion: “Make sure you kick him in the nuts!”

He was supposed to be the epitome of a Bath man, finishing his rugby days in the club less than a mile from his home. But as he called bingo numbers in a town hall in France, helping an old lady win a telly, Dave Attwood knew things hadn’t quite gone to plan.

As he lay in the back of the ambulance, with his first concussion, the medics were concerned about Ben John’s nose: clearly broken, they thought. But it wasn’t: just a gift from his father’s side. The head though, that was the start of a different story altogether.

In the car journey from Cardiff to Newcastle with team-mate Epi Taione, Vili Ma’asi broke down and couldn’t stop crying. He was 26 and had just said goodbye to Tonga for a professional rugby life. The only problem was, he didn’t have a club yet.

Amid the smoke-billowing industrial landscape of Port Talbot, where the core ingredients of steel are blasted at 1,200°C to produce five million tonnes of the hard stuff every year, a ‘mother’s boy’ called Richard Hibbard was kicked into shape.

In a town of one coffee shop and one pub in the South Island of New Zealand, the man with the greatest scrum brain on the planet is giving out advice to the rugby world. He used biomechanics, ballet dancers, and cage fighters to perfect the All Black scrum and now, at the request of forwards coaches the world over, Mike Cron is on Zoom. Listen up.

At 39, and after 115 England appearances, four Rugby World Cup campaigns and fourteen years playing for Darlington Mowden Park, Tamara Taylor felt she was being forced out of top-flight English rugby before her time. But then she fired up her Twitter account.

This dad of four girls never quite replaced playing rugby in his life, he struggles with it still. But he does suggest solutions for many of its ills, and women are at the heart of many of them. Once he’s done fixing rugby, then it’s time for something else. House of Lords, maybe?