World, Most Popular Simon Campbell World, Most Popular Simon Campbell

Spain

For the final of the King’s Cup, Valladolid came alive with tens of thousands of rugby fans, celebrating their city’s utter dominance of the sport. Spain could not only compete at rugby, but maybe conquer it too. If only they had the chance.

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Interviews, Most Popular Simon Campbell Interviews, Most Popular Simon Campbell

Giselle Mather

She was the first woman to earn level 3 and level 4 coaching badges. The first woman to lead a men’s side on a three-promotion, double-Twickenham victory, 62-game unbeaten run. The first woman to get a full-time coaching post at a Premiership club. But to coach the country she helped to two World Cup finals? Not even an interview. And that, is what ‘almost’ broke Giselle Mather.

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Marcus Smith

He ‘runs like Forrest Gump’, could’ve been in the next Jonas Brothers, almost played for Tottenham Hotspur and his dad is a country-hopping rugby international. His mum though, gave him the skills. This is Marcus Smith.

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Interviews, Most Popular Simon Campbell Interviews, Most Popular Simon Campbell

Emily Scarratt

On a farm in Leicestershire, in what was once a cow shed, the world’s best rugby player is using straw bales for squats, doing pull-ups on pallets and kicking balls though old tractor tyres. The only real challenge for Emily Scarratt, is a 500-piece puzzle. Now that’s ‘next-level’, she admits.

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Grassroots, Most Popular Simon Campbell Grassroots, Most Popular Simon Campbell

Cornish Pirates

One-by-one, the councillors stood up to say their piece. Twenty, thirty, maybe forty of them. Some were for, some against. Some eloquent, some, less so. Then, the vote. All 123 councillors, a single vote apiece, to decide the future of Cornish rugby. It started with a single ‘For’, but then, one after the other, the ‘Againsts’ rolled in.  

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Topsy Ojo

Two Tests, two tries, against the All Blacks. Without even mentioning the 73 scores for London Irish, Topsy Ojo already has enough for a thousand after-dinner speeches. Alternatively, he could just hand the floor to Eden Ojo, now there’s a talker.

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Legends, Most Popular Simon Campbell Legends, Most Popular Simon Campbell

John Dawes

When people talk of the ‘Welsh way’ of playing rugby, a key architect of it, a science teacher from the valleys, rarely gets mentioned. But when John Dawes received a letter from the Welsh Rugby Union saying his London-based team needed to appoint a coach, he stepped up, changing the face of a club and country forever.

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Graham Dawe

“I do struggle with cocky 19-year-olds. You want to say to them: ‘you got something special in your heels that makes you bounce around like that?’ Just calm down. Kyran Bracken was cocky, he thought he was fun. I didn’t take kindly to that.”

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