England’s women have a precious new asset for the campaign to raise the profile of their sport in the shape of the World Cup. But the next most precious could be Tamara Taylor – not quite as new, perhaps, but every bit as bright and inspiring.
World-champion status can bring a certain amount of pressure but Taylor is full of its joys. “I now have a big piece of metal that I carry round with me most of the time,” she says of the main change to her life since England’s triumph in France last summer. “My two silver medals are in their boxes, nicely polished and shiny, but this gold one has got bits chipped out of it, and kids all over the country have held it and worn it. And that’s how it should be. Apart from that everything is pretty much the same.”
When England begin their Six Nations campaign on Sunday, Taylor will be captain. She is one of only three starters from the World Cup final who will line up against Wales at St Helen’s in Swansea. Four of the starting XV who beat Canada to clinch the World Cup have retired and most of the rest are in Rio de Janeiro for round two of the World Sevens Series.
Those in Rio are England’s new professionals, so appointed to optimise preparation for next year’s Olympics in the same city. Two more, Kay Wilson and Alex Matthews, are in the team for Wales, but Taylor is among those 15-a-side specialists who remain amateur. Her day job is as a Rugby Football Union community coach in the north-east, which puts the 33-year-old lock right at the heart of that campaign to raise the sport’s profile.
“We are trying to embed rugby into the national curriculum,” she says. “In tag rugby, which is the starting point for many into rugby, I delivered on a course yesterday which was for primary school teachers. I have done a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure that we can get rugby into schools and that it fits in with what they want to get out of it, physical literacy and going right back to the basics of fundamentals of movement.”
And the campaign to promote women’s rugby is part of the greater campaign to change female attitudes towards sport. “I would love them to be playing rugby, but I don’t mind what sport they are doing. It’s about trying to get more young girls wanting to do sport in general. The media plays a massive part in that. If people know that there are female athletes playing rugby or tennis, then kids will see that and see that it is accessible to them. They don’t have to be a film star or adopt other celebrities as their role models. They can be athletes. It’s cool to play sports. It’s not something you shouldn’t be doing. It doesn’t make you less of a woman.”
Two new role models for aspiring girls might be Abbie Brown, 18, and Sydney Gregson, 19. The Bristolians will be making their debuts on Sunday in Swansea at centre and wing respectively, along with Richmond’s Hannah Field and there are a further four uncapped players on the bench. Taylor describes them as having “bags of talent” and is manifestly excited at the prospect of leading out a young team for England’s first game as world champions.
Their second will be at the Stoop next weekend against Italy, and the professional sevens players might then become available for the away game against Ireland, the fixture that derailed England’s shot at an eighth consecutive title two years ago. They take on Scotland in the 25,000-seat stadium of Taylor’s home club Darlington, Mowden Park, on the penultimate weekend, before finishing their campaign against France at Twickenham, just after the men’s game.
“It might be the start of a new year,” says Taylor, “but it’s also a start of a new chapter for us in terms of where we are going. Yes, it’s great that we won the World Cup, and I will carry my medal around with me forever. But we have to move on from that. I know for years that every time I played New Zealand, I wanted to beat them because they were world champions. You can’t sit on your laurels. You have to make sure that you are still pushing. It will be a good thing.”
