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. 

Beneath the pylons, on a sun-burnt field, with the dull drone of the A13 in the distance, you’ll find a side that has long threatened the women’s rugby elite. Dominating the second tier, and with a travelling support, Thurrock would give every top side a scare. If only they got the chance.

A farm in Gloucestershire has become the most prolific breeding ground for professional rugby players. Coupled with a Championship model that could be the blueprint for the future and complete with a meerkat garden and llama and emu orchard, Hartpury College has truly completed rugby education.

Even before the guns stopped firing, and the new country had fully emerged, a Croatian rugby team had formed. A few years later, led by a man who would become a priest, they faced Italy in an incredible World Cup qualifying run.
The biggest star on the pitch wasn’t Italian however, it was a Croatian rugby rock star by the name of Frano Botica.

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.

In the farming lands of north Norfolk, where Sirs Benjamin Britten and James Dyson went to school, in a town that was once burnt to cinders, a 91-year-old former boxer has found a home unlike any he’s ever known, at Holt RFC.

In a forest where the trees can stop a foreign invasion and not even dancing bears can walk safely, Tykes and Titans continue to be slain, and it’s all down to the rugby men of Cinderford, refusing to know their place.

Literally half a world away from where the sport first began, and with a national side on the periphery of rugby’s top table, Hong Kong is the epicentre of the sevens world, the spiritual home of the abridged game. The Hong Kong Sevens is a must for every rugby fan the world over, and this is why...

It’s been played by the greats of the game, from Lomu and Campese to Habana and Serevi, its atmosphere is the stuff of legend, and then there’s the food, the nightlife, not to mention the ancient history right on its doorstep – it’s for good reason that the Hong Kong Sevens is rugby’s true bucket-list event.

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.

The reverend had just wanted to try and keep youngsters on the straight and narrow, but using a pitch near a monkey house, bandstand and a bear pit, in a town perfumed by beer, he instead started a rugby club that would go on to conquer Europe.

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.

Stories of resistance attacks against the Nazis, Soviet showtrials and the hell of war-time Poland filled their heads. They didn’t need to understand every word spoken by their Welsh coach. This was the team talk to end all team talks. Germany never stood a chance.