Jo and Tony Yapp
The Pony Club is an unusual place to find elite half-backs, but if you were a rugby scout in the Midlands around the mid-1990s watching a spot of tetrathlon, you could have snapped up two: brother and sister Tony and Jo Yapp.
Mike Friday
Seven years ago, having taken Kenya to fifth in the world, Mike Friday was set to step away from rugby. The politics were too much and he’d had enough. Only a call from a former Wasp changed his mind and he ended up starting an American revolution.
DMP Sharks
They conceded 1,240 points, and scored 63. From 18 league games, they suffered 18 defeats. Last season, DMP Sharks delivered the worst performance in Allianz Premier 15s’ brief history. But it got worse. Just 83 days later, their entire existence was threatened.
Trevor Leota
Almost twenty years ago, Trevor Leota was helping Wasps become champions of Europe, but today the 46-year-old grandad is helping people in a different way, as a mental health worker determined to help halt the rise in youth suicide.
Gill Burns
In front of a packed wooden stand that once belonged to Everton FC, Gill Burns made her England debut at Waterloo, in a game she’d helped organise. Impressed by what he saw, an alickadoo congratulated her while steering her away from the players’ bar. There were, after all, no women or dogs allowed.
Nolli Waterman
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.
Chris Robshaw
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.
Zintle Mpupha
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.
Danny Care
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.
The Clealls
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.
Saracens
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.
Louis Rees-Zammit
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.
Simon Middleton
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.
George Furbank
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.
Adam Hastings
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!”
Dave Attwood
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.