England were a shambles. A quarter-final World Cup defeat to Wales, fifth place in the Five Nations and without a title for almost a decade. The new coach Geoff Cooke was part of the answer, the other came in the form of a 22-year-old son of a Lieutenant Colonel called Will Carling.

On the Promenade des Anglais, a huge curve of golden beach in Nice, where the English have  been welcome ever since the days when Queen Victoria wintered there, Steffon Armitage is enjoying a homecoming to the city where he first fell love in with rugby.

In the space of just one week last year, Claudia MacDonald managed to produce a career-defining performance against the Black Ferns, while also suffering from an injury that almost brought her career to an end.

When the world shut down, a seventeen-year-old Henry Arundell got to work. Borrowing weights from his neighbours, he made himself 6kg bigger, stronger and fitter. Even though a six-month injury intervened, he’d still paved the way to a try-scoring England debut after just two league starts. 

Rejected by Leicester as a teenager, even the slightly longer route he took to professionalism, still saw Tommy Freeman break into Eddie Jones’ England squad aged just 21. Now, all his coaches have to do, is not coach him too much.

John Dobson was enjoying victory. A parade through Cape Town to celebrate the Stormers’ first international trophy, a profound experience for a man who has only ever coached professioanlly in Western Province. But it didn’t come close to that day in 2007 when he sat in C-Max in Pretoria Central Prison, and came face-to-face with ‘prime evil’ himself. 

Within months of his rugby career ending with a little help from the hip of Tim Visser, Chris Cusiter moved to LA. Since then, he’s done everything you’re not supposed to do, all at the same time, including losing a $6,000 bottle of vintage Cognac.

The sport had never seen a player like him. For Waisale Serevi time seemed to stand still. A game-changer unlike any other, he changed not only the game, but also his country. And the reason he played? The 1977 Lions.

Eileen Dallaglio walked up to Jack Rowell, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Who are you?” asked the England coach. “I’m the mother of the number eight you brought on 25 minutes too late ... he needs to start.” The coach walked off saying nothing, but Lawrence Dallaglio started the next game.

What follows a 28-5 half-time lead, and a personal haul of three tries in a semi-final, is usually a final. But that wasn’t the case for Max Malins. He still doesn’t have closure, but you wouldn’t know it. A try-scoring record of 34 tries in 33 games doesn’t exactly give the impression of a man with worries.

A waterlogged training ground around the back of the old stand used to force Bristol to train on the car park. Struggling to stay in the top division, they forever lived in the shadow of their neighbours. But now, the biggest shadow is cast by them, from an £11.5m high-performance centre.

Fifteen-year-old Malakai Fekitoa was only supposed to be helping carry water on for the Tongan side. Instead, he beasted them in a fitness test, and earned himself a fast-track to the national squad. Aged just sixteen, he was going to wear the red of his homeland for the first time. More than a decade later, he made his second debut for the Tongans as captain, and now he’s aiming to go one better, and take them to the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

Shaunagh Brown searched for her opponent’s name. If she was going to fight for the first time, she wanted to know who she was facing. Google told her nothing. The gym she supposedly trained at knew nothing. Then, into the ring walked a European silver medallist. She’d been stitched up. 

He’s not as fast as his dad, but Adam Radwan, the half-Egyptian wing from a village near Sheepwash, was quick enough to score three tries on his England debut. Luckily, he’s got a cap to prove it, otherwise he’d never believe it happened.

More than a decade ago, Steve Hansen told Bill Sweeney that England would never win another World Cup. England just weren’t set up for it. When Bill got the chance to prove him wrong, he had just a few problems to overcome, starting with 119 redundancies and a global pandemic.

After a year playing with Japanese forklift truck factory workers and taking spiritual visits to Hiroshima, Freddie Burns has returned with a new perspective. He won’t be the ‘laughing stock of world rugby’ anymore. And, ask him anything, and you’ll get a straight answer. Especially when you ask about Bath.

Less than a year after signing a peace agreement, the United Arab Emirates and Israel met for a rugby match, the first sporting event between the two. At the heart of it, is a man famed for hospitalising three Welshmen and laying waste to a nation’s hopes thirty years ago. Apollo Perelini, aka The Terminator, is the most unlikely of peacekeepers.

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.

As the best side in the league, most thought Gloucester had the Premiership title sewn up in 2003, but inspiring Wasps to a 39-3 win in the final was Alex King, a fly-half who is now, almost twenty years later, trying to finally make amends to The Shed.

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.