In the South Hams, the prettiest of places you’ve probably never visited, the women of Ivybridge RFC are challenging for honours. At the helm? Possibly rugby’s only husband and wife team, Georgie and Ben Gulliver. 

On 6 August 2021, Old Elthamians announced the club would not be fulfilling their fixtures in National League One. A team that was founded 110 years ago would have to start the season without a first team. This is the story of how it happened, what happened next and the rebuilding of a proud rugby club…

In the Bricklayers Arms they flicked a coin to see which way they would go, to a man committed to the result. Heads, amateur dramatics. Tails, rugby. The Queen landed face down and the Shoreditch creatives headed for Hackney Marshes.

In 22 seconds, the ball went from one end of the pitch to another, passing through the hands of eight Barbarians, with jinks, dummies and attempted decapitations in between. It was the try, one that will never be forgotten, just like the man who scored it, Sir Gareth Edwards.

In the City of London, in the shadow of the financial world’s buildings, amid the thick-set urbanity of the metropolis, is an oasis of pristine green, complete with what looks like a castle and, more importantly, a pair of rugby goalposts. This is the Honourable Artillery Company.

One of Charles Windsor’s early jobs as King was to head north to Doncaster and give it a fresh new title of its own. After 800 or so years as a town, it was now a city. All it needs now, is for the local rugby club to gain the premier status it so richly deserves.

When Jonny Wilkinson was at his zenith in 2003, sessions with his kicking coach Dave Alred quite often turned to farce. Literally. As well as sketch comedy, satire and one-liners from Naked Gun, Dave knew how to keep Jonny in the zone. Just as he knew how to improve Stuart Barnes’ spiral bombs, Jonny Sexton’s drop goals and Beauden Barrett’s restarts. For rugby’s kicking coach to the stars, every day’s a school day.

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.

Over the years, the players and members of one London merit table club have helped Rugby World Cups happen, captained and coached their country, and had games attended by politicians, Lords and dignitaries. But for London Japanese all that matters is one thing: ‘tasty beers’.

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.