As he lined up to take the kick, the ground of his childhood dreams fell silent. All around were fans who’d cheered for and against him. The silence was broken by one man, ‘I hope your wife dies.’ For all his brilliance in every shirt he wore, at every game, there was always one.

Before she took to the field against South Africa, it all became too much for Natalia John. The tears flowed, she broke down. She wasn’t just playing for her country, it felt like she was also playing for her livelihood, her family and, specifically, her nephew Morgan.

Paula George wasn’t just the only black person in her village, but the only black person in her family. At twelve, she was forced into foster care, at fourteen she left home for good. At nineteen rugby saved her life. But then, at fifty, cancer threatened to take it, within a matter of months.

When they finally gave James Hook a Six Nations start in the Wales number ten jersey, he showed them what they’d been missing. A full house. A try, conversion, drop-goal and four penalties. Twenty-two points. Victory over England. It was rugby Roy of the Rovers stuff for the boy from Port Talbot.

When 17-year-old local boy Josh Matavesi made his debut for Camborne, few expected it to lead to a career featuring two Rugby World Cups for Fiji, and playing for some of the most iconic clubs in Europe, before returning to exactly the same place where it all began, some fifteen years later.

Weeks after making his under-21 debut for Australia, the teenage wing stepped up to the senior side, against the All Blacks in Christchurch. He didn’t blink, he didn’t even know who Stu Wilson was, so why worry? They lost, but he scored, and David Campese’s reign had begun.

After once ruling the age-grade roost, taps on shoulders, key departures, and criticism from all angles, has meant England’s pathway has come under fire. But now, England’s youth might finally be coming of age.

Mo Hunt walked into the room filled with the people that had both built and broken her, with emotions still raw after a World Cup she couldn’t even bear to watch. She’d reached a pivotal moment, and there was only one way it was going to play out.

As women’s rugby in England enters a crucial stage in its development, Premiership Women’s Rugby was launched with Belinda Moore as employee number one. An average ice skater, but with every professional credential you could want, she might just be the game changer the sport needs.

Before he’d even turned 30, with no Premiership playing experience to his name, Tom Harrison was charged with giving Dan Cole and the Leicester forwards help with their scrummaging. Just two seasons later, he is coaching England at a Rugby World Cup.

At Oldham’s Boundary Park, a ground where fame once flickered at the dawning of football’s Premiership era, one of league-union’s great crossover coaches, Mike Ford, is attempting his finest feat: reviving the fortunes of his home-town club.

Four times a year, one church in the Welsh valleys is packed to the rafters, standing room only, both young and old. Tongans have made a big impact on more than just rugby in Wales and, if you ask the Tuipulotus, the feeling is mutual.

The story of Bridgend-born Meg Webb, who plays for Brython Thunder, Bristol Bears and Wales, also features in the new issue of Rugby Journal. Available to buy here.

On the last day of training, three days before she gave birth, Abbie Ward was squatting over 100kgs, reeling off deadlifts, bench pressing and rowing. Less than three weeks, a C-section and a baby girl later, and the Bristol Bear forward is back at work.

When Italy’s under-19s visited Argentina more than two decades ago, they gave fifty minutes of game time to a local teenager called Sergio Parisse, who happened to have Italian parents. Fate would then set him on a path to become the greatest Italian player of his generation.

Rocky Clark wasn’t always on the right path. A ‘fat knacker’ in danger of being arrested was instead ‘guilted’ onto a rugby path paved with 137 caps and a World Cup win.

Before they conquered all, Wasps Women worked shifts in the club kitchen just to validate their existence. For forty years they’ve been the great entertainers of the women’s game, until they weren’t. When the men’s side imploded, the impact reverberated from Coventry down the M40, with the women’s team forced to leave the division they once dominated.

Glued to the television, a twelve-year-old Alex Goode didn’t miss a point as he watched Britain capture their first-ever badminton medal at the Olympics. He’d found his sporting hero, who just happened to also be his Aunty Jo. 

He was let go by both Sale and Wasps, and then found himself in the basement of the English second tier, but Mark Atkinson found the road to redemption began at Goldington Road, known for having a Lazarus-like impact on lost rugby souls.

Imprisoned for drink driving; sharing a prison cell with a man who’d tried to burn down a house with his kids inside; fearing that cancer might take him, like it took his mum; former Welsh lock Andy Allen was put on suicide watch. He’d thought about it before, so much had happened, but this time it was a failed fraudster that helped save him.