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.

“Zoe Aldcroft is powerful, athletic and hard to tackle. An intelligent rugby player, from playing in the backline, her understanding of ball carrying in space and running lines is excellent. Zoe hasn’t reached anywhere near the potential she has, and is already playing for England. She can keep getting better and better. There is much more to come.” – Tamara Taylor, 115 caps, England

Armand Vaquerin left the bar, returned to his car and came back with a gun. He challenged the bar to a game of Russian roulette and, when there were no takers, he decided to play anyway. Moments later he was dead. At least, that’s one version of events.

Driving home from the Olympics that was supposed to be her sporting finale, Non Evans MBE started to cry. She was shattered. A career traversing international rugby, judo, wrestling and weightlifting was over, and there was nothing she could do about it. Life was also set to get worse before it got better, and she could enjoy the daffodils once again.

Catapulting sweets at sixth-formers, letting in goals ‘left, right and centre’ at football, running riot against Colston’s and the sight of Lesley Vainikolo have all played a role in the shaping of Ellis Genge. But, key to it all, was Leicester’s shit night life.

Mui Thomas’ skin grows fourteen times faster than normal. She can’t sweat, kids (and parents) have pointed at her in the street, her bones have been so brittle they were compared to that of a 110-year-old and, put simply, doctors didn’t expect her to survive. Yet, the match official is living her best life and, she says, rugby has played a huge part in that.

Playing dustbin cricket in Trinidad, he couldn’t even dream of being Brian Lara because he wasn’t left-handed. Instead, he had to settle for playing rugby for England and becoming a European champion alongside some of the game’s greatest players, all while living in the south of France. So, tell us, Delon Armitage, where did it all go wrong?

At a freshers’ fair sometime in the early 2000s, future England captain Sarah Hunter attempted to coax girls into playing for her uni side with the hope of getting a half-decent XV together. Now, 123 caps, three Rugby World Cups, an MBE, and a good chunk of two decades later, it’s fair to say both Sarah and Loughborough University are doing okay.

In a café full of fisherman on the Devon coast, a 20-stone man that looks a bit familiar rocks up on a Triumph bike. He’s here to share stories of gun-wielding hardmen in dark alleys, chainsaw-toting vigilantes, taking uppercuts from Francois Pienaar, the friendliest divorce ever and having ‘Bob in Luton’ trying to brand him racist on Twitter. David Flatman is more than just a pretty face.

At fifteen years of age, some inner-city kids are teetering on the edge of a life that can go one way or the other. Luckily for Beno Obano, who had started his rugby life as a six-try-scoring winger, he had no such choice – not with his mum Patricia on the case.

It was Simi Pam’s first night out in months. As a doctor, she’d been on the NHS frontline and there was also a rugby season with Bristol Bears to toast. But instead of celebrating, she was called a ‘black bitch’ and told to ‘go back to Africa’, then blindsided by a punch to the head.

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.

Sam was a 30-goal-a-season striker (for one campaign) and Joe found the rigours of life at Torquay United ‘too serious’. Luckily, salvation was found in rugby, at Teignmouth RFC, where two Simmonds brothers had already tore it up many years before.

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.

Obsessed with winning the World Cup, Eddie Jones failed to change and it cost him his job. It wasn’t his fault, it was everyone else’s. After trying to prove points, he rediscovered his love for coaching with South Africa, which led to Japan, England, and another World Cup final. He may have lost, but he’s not done. He wants to create the greatest team in the world. And then? He’s off to Hawaii.

“I had those thoughts for sure and, I suspect a few of the other guys did as well, thinking ‘what am I hanging around for? The universe is telling me to move on to pastures new’. But no one’s really seen that as an option.”

Before lockdown, Celia Quansah and Meg Jones were living their best rugby lives. Paid to be professional sevens players, the former heptathlete and 2017 Rugby World Cup finalist had the Olympics in their sights. One Zoom call from the RFU’s Conor O’Shea later, and it feels like it’s all over.

For world-champion coal carrier Phil Ounsley, seeing his daughter haul a bag of carrots around the kitchen was a sign she had a sporting future. He was right. Four years after first picking up a rugby ball, Jodie was offered an England contract and the former cat photographer had set her sights on the Tokyo Olympics.

Three years after losing on his debut to Italy, Serge Betsen rose from the bench against England in the first-ever Six Nations. He was given less than 15 minutes to prove his worth, to prove that leaving him out for three years was a mistake. But, in a haze of emotion, he was sent off almost immediately. France lost, and coach Bernard Laporte told the media Serge would never play for his country again.

At 16, after his dad died, Steve Diamond stepped into his shoes as he was handed his job at the local printers. He was a cog in the wheel of a 2,000-strong workforce, pumping out millions of newspapers a day. Thanks to the union, it was paid well, too, £300 a week by the age of 18. A job for life.