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.

Of all the things to do to annoy your parents, putting yourself on a prison wing doesn’t seem to be the most advisable. And yet, that was the route Poppy, one half of England rugby’s famous Cleall twins, chose to go. “My mum had been going on at me about getting a job, so I thought this would piss her off and got a job as a prison officer,” explains Poppy, who started with young offenders in Feltham, before moving to a men’s prison in Bristol. “In Feltham there were 36 young offenders per wing, but then in Bristol it was 113 per wing, it was different gravy.

“Everyone who came from Bristol Crown Court would come here, so it wasn’t as if you could avoid murderers or rapists.

“It was vile,” she continues. “The worst problem was the drugs, you could actually get high walking around the wings, you needed like a ventilation fan. 

“It was really, really bad and every day you’d go in and there’d be somebody else having a fit from Spice, which they manage to get in.

“You actually don’t understand how they get caught because the way they get it in is so clever,” admits Poppy. “They might get a painting that’s been sent in from their daughter saying, ‘oh I love you daddy’ and it’s actually in the paint. So they grind up the paint and they smoke the paint. 

“Or it could be on the stamps, the bit you lick, and they grind up the stamp and these are the ways we’ve caught them, so there must be so many other ways.”

Anything that Poppy may have seen on the pitch, is clearly surpassed by what she witnessed on what was her day job. “I was a senior officer, so I got called on the radio to come to a cell as someone had a razor.

“He had this razor and he was like ‘get back, get back, I’m going to cut myself’, I was trying to calm him down and build a rapport, whereas he was, ‘I’m not getting out of here so there’s no point’. And then he grabs the razor and slits his throat.”

Dead? “No, he didn’t die, it’s really hard to kill yourself like that, but it was ‘oh my god’. It was one of my first-ever instances when I was in charge of the wing.

“That was one of the worst, but some of them were quite funny. I went into this cell to speak to one of the cleaners, who are usually the most trusted prisoners, basically the most trusted prisoners.  

“And he was being funny and I said, ‘You okay, you’re not actually yourself?’ and then I looked up on the side, and there’s an iPhone, a big chunky iPhone just sat there looking at me.

“Bearing in mind, phones are illegal and nobody should have a phone, I looked back at him and tried to pretend I hadn’t seen it, and carry on the conversation.  

“So, I just said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute’. Called for help as you need four prison officers to restrain a prisoner. The prison officers run up, I open the door and he’s there shoving it up his bum. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it, I wasn’t getting involved, he was half-naked, and the officers jumped on him, and the iPhone went, pop, and just popped out of his bum.”

“No wonder there’s a market for iPhone mini,” adds Bryony.

“And this is how bad it is,” continues Poppy. “I used to get in some mornings and when I open the door, there’s a Chinese takeaway or a bottle of Scotch. So yeah, they’ve got drugs, phones and then the next thing they want is takeaways.  They get them in via drones with hooks on and then drag them through their windows.

“I never thought I’d be in serious harm, but there was the odd shaky leg moment.”

Prison stories could go on, but remembering we’re here for the rugby, we bring the story back to the start. 

The Norfolk-born 29-year-old twins played for the same local teams – occasionally having to switch to ensure they could keep playing – up until their late teens. “We started playing because we had to watch our brother – who was three years older – and the teacher said we could join in,” says Poppy. “But then he quit two weeks later and so he was the one watching us. He didn’t find it fair that his seven-year-old sisters were better at rugby than him, so he quit.

“He’s the sensible one,” continues Poppy, “he’s got a proper job and a house, whereas we rent a house in Hemel Hempstead and play rugby.”

Although the mum didn’t dress them the same, their look was so similar they needed another way of telling them apart. “We always had a colour,” says Bryony, “because as children, we looked much more identical.

“I was blue,” says Poppy, “and I was more Winnie the Pooh,” says Bryony, “so you got the bluey/greeny colours and I got pink.”

Rugby was always important. “There’s a video of us when we were under-9s going, ‘we want to play for England when we’re older’, but we didn’t do that, the presenter told us to say that,” explains Poppy, “but we did idolise all the England women though, and we’d like literally follow them with autograph books.

“I’ve got Jo Yapp’s autograph about four times,” she continues, “I had Karen Andrews and Emily Feltham too...”

Bryony, for her part, chose a different career path. “I’ve always wanted to do something in sport,” says Bryony, “well, I wanted to be a professional athlete, but I knew I couldn’t do that at the time, so anything in sport was fine. 

“I did sport science, but mum said I couldn’t just do sport, so I did geography too knowing I wanted to be a teacher and I went to Exeter. 

“Jo Yapp was down there coaching and actually she was the reason I got back into rugby,” continues Bryony, who like her sister had played rugby since minis, but her injuries had seen her drift from the game. “She gave me self-confidence, I hadn’t played for five years since I did my ACL twice, and I actually wasn’t sure I could come back.

“But Jo was so good, really caring, helped me put all the issues to one side. Having someone to come and speak to you and talk through your worries is so important.”

At Exeter University, Bryony joined the fleet of cars-worth of players travelling to play at Bristol Bears, before teaching took her to London and Saracens. “When I was teaching in Crystal Palace, I’d obviously get Poppy in to coach rugby and one of the girls we taught/coached is now in the England squad,” says Bryony. “Sadia Kabeya.”

“Taught her everything she knows,” adds Poppy. “And now she’s trying to get my shirt.”

Poppy won the first of her England caps in 2016, while Bryony [who made her debut three years later] was still working her way back into the game. “She was an inspiration really, seeing her play for England,” she admits. “It made me want to see what I could do.” 

Were you competitive which other? “Oh yeah,” they both nod in unison. “On sports day we had to agree not to compete in other person’s event, we had to have our own separate events,” says Bryony. “I’ll give you a current example, when Wasps played Saracens, I made sure I wasn’t here in the evening, because I knew what it would be like.”

“You would have been here if you’d won,” suggests Poppy, whose Saracens won 20-26 at Wasps. “No, whatever the result I wasn’t going to be there, I’d already booked to go out.

“But we were very competitive about everything from exam results to attendance at school.”

Bryony moving away from Poppy to join Wasps caught the attention of many earlier this year, especially as the sides would face each other in September, but it was a decision the front rower felt she had to make. “The end goal for me was always next year’s World Cup,” she says. “I was looking at myself as a player, the areas where I needed development and I felt that, by staying at Sarries, I was in quite comfortable situation.

“I was happy, but I thought there could be more that I get out of myself, a change to make me uncomfortable. I’m going to push myself with new coaches, especially LJ [Lewis, forwards coach], who has already given me so much in one-to-one scrummaging. 

“My career isn’t going to last forever and I want to get the most out of me and I think by changing, I was going to do that.”

“A friend of mine from uni played for Wasps – Katie Elder, the captain – and every year she’s been on a me going ‘Wasps, Wasps, Wasps’, and this time I rang her up and said ‘okay’.”

“Although she did leave you high and dry,” chips in Poppy. “Yeah, she did,” laughs Bryony, “she went and got pregnant.”

The Clealls work seamlessly together, adding bits to one another’s conversation but never talking over each other, usually only chipping in to gently mock the other. They talk of, not some telepathic bond as twins, but of knowing each other so well that when one comes down with an injury, the other knows what it might be. 

Even the way they’ve dovetailed at clubs, to-ing and fro-ing with Bristol and Saracens, seems as much down to luck as anything. Poppy is definitely the bigger rugby nause of the two. “Sometimes I lock myself in my room so she doesn’t talk to me about rugby all day and every day,” says Bryony, “and it’s usually accompanied with clips or videos or ‘did you see that tackle?’.”

“No, but did anyone see that Ted Hill tackle?” says Poppy, earnestly. “Seriously, did you see it?”

The Saracens environment, she says, is a perfect for her. “I think it’s because of the way they align with the men,” she says. “Obviously, it’s not perfect but compared to other teams who say they do, but actually it’s all smoke and mirrors and they’re nowhere near. 

“At Saracens, we’ve always trained at the men’s facilities, always had access to most things. They’re always there to help, even if it’s not to do with rugby. 

“It’s more than just the rugby it’s like the whole thing. And I see a lot more of the statements that get made, ‘oh, we’re part of the men and they really love us’, but there’s more action at Saracens.

“I think we’re probably one of the first teams to be completely part of the club. Do you remember when we first won the Premiership we walked into the stadium two months later and there was a picture of us?,” she says to Bryony, before explaining the story. “Nigel Wray has this huge art collection and whenever the men have won a title, he’s had them painted, and when we won, we went in and the artist had done this massive picture of us too. It’s the little things like that that make a difference. 

“Oh my god someone has paid a lot of money for us. When you walk into the stadium you know we’re part of it, there’s a lot of grounds where you don’t even know a women side plays there.”

Bryony is enjoying her new environment too. “Poppy’s always asking me what’s different, what’s the same, but it’s chalk and cheese really. 

“I think especially where the woman’s game is at there’s always such a difference in how people do things, because there’s no blueprint. But yeah, the setup is so professional and yet not in a professional environment [the side are based at the amateur Wasps FC] which is a testament to Giselle [Mather, DoR] really and her team. But they really push for the best, they’re very player-centric.”

Poppy has also branched out into a new line of work, with the launch of Women’s Rugby Agency, where you can book certain England players for public appearances. “Was that a covid brainchild?” asks Bryony, “no it wasn’t but it was about two years ago,” responds Poppy. “I always remember meeting Emily Felton when she was our local England player, and she came to our rugby club when we eight or nine and I always remember that, and having those photos and autographs on our wall and it had such an impact. It was the same when we went to see England games and getting autographs, it meant so much.

“And I think one month it went through the roof, and I just had all these people messaging me saying, ‘hey, can you come to my school, can you come to our club’, and some I’d get back to, some I couldn’t, or it would be in Newcastle, or the dates wouldn’t work, and ‘can you do it for free?’

“Sometimes it’s really awkward, especially if it’s a friend or somebody I knew, so I just felt we needed a central place that you can go to if you want a person to give awards or to give a speech, or do some coaching, so that’s where it started.

“I got some of the girls involved, and now if someone wants an England player to come and inspire the next generation they know where to go. And the amount of places we’ve been to now is so good, it’s gone really well.

“When it was lockdown and we couldn’t see anyone,” continues Poppy. “I think we sent over 50 video messages. We said, ‘message us, and we’ll send you a free message’, and the response was insane.”

But they’re not agents though, Poppy is quick to point out. “No, somebody asked us to be their agent the other day,” she says. “Yeah, she’d be no good,” says Bryony, “she’d get a boot deal, but it’d only be the left boot.”

Poppy is a campaigner, she wants to instigate change whenever she sees the need, which includes the recent debate on rugby boots. “Every game I get blisters here and here,” she says, pointing to different parts of her foot. “And I just thought it was normal and I spoke to someone about it the other day, and they said, ‘you’re not supposed to get them every game, maybe after the first few times you wear them’. 

“So why have we not done anything about this?  Why has no one ever looked into the fact that we might have different feet and we might actually need different boots.”

There are other irritations too. “There’s one company that’s really bugging me at the moment,” she says. “They’ve come on board, signed multimillion pound deals with female teams, I can’t even believe they’ve signed these deals, but then you look on their social media and they don’t have one female post. Why sign the deals in the first place?”

A leader on and off the field, a month after we spoke, Poppy captained her country for the first time, leading them to a crushing 56-15 victory over New Zealand. 

Although Bryony, who was injured and wearing a protective boot during her shoot, was unable to play, she continued to coach and advise the next generation while in rehab.

There’s little doubt the twins are having a huge impact on the game. As if the physical sight of twins both making it to the pinnacle of the game isn’t impressive enough, that they’re making such efforts to share their journey with others, is the kind of story that should be filling every social media timeline, whatever the brand. 

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Sam Bénard

This extract was taken from issue 16 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.