Shaunagh Brown didn’t play rugby properly until she was 25, but is now in the privileged position, as she calls it, of being one of the few professional women’s rugby players in the world. The tighthead prop, who hails from Peckham in south London, plays for Harlequins as well as England and splits her time as a professional athlete training and playing for club and country.
England’s women’s national rugby team, known as the Red Roses, turned professional in January 2019 and since then has had 28 full-time contracted players in the professional squad per year, plus a handful of players on part-time contracts.
This puts Brown in the first group of professional women’s rugby players in the world, which is just the latest career move of the illustrious 31-year-old – who has also worked as a commercial diver, gas engineer and firefighter. Her varied career stems from her attitude to all things in life: “If I can’t find a reason why not, I just do it.”
Before turning to rugby, Brown had focused on athletics since the age of 12, and represented England in the hammer throw event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. A move to rugby was not part of her plan. “Every summer at the athletics club we would have some rugby boys come down to train with us, who had been sent there by their teachers as there was no rugby on. They used to annoy me because they slowed us down, so actually my first impression of rugby players wasn’t a good one,” she laughs.
“But when they got to know me, they suggested I try rugby. Weeks later, while I was studying A-level PE at college, we got to do a rugby session and I just loved it. I started to realise that I might be good at it and enjoy it, but I couldn’t do it properly because I was still at the international level of athletics and I couldn’t go to rugby training in case I got an injury – even a small injury to my hands or fingers could stop me being able to throw.”
But it was just a matter of finding the right time, says Brown. “After the Commonwealth Games in 2014 I sort of fell out of love with athletics and wanted a new challenge. I headed down to my local club, Medway Rugby Club, and thought it was a good time to start.”
It was a move that Brown thought would take her away from the elite level of sport that is so demanding – she was training five or six days a week as an athlete. At first, rugby was just about the community side of sport and a fun way to challenge herself again. But after just a couple of sessions her talent was noticed by her coach.
It wasn’t until she watched a Red Roses game at Twickenham Stoop during the Women’s Six Nations that she realised her own potential. “I literally turned to my mum and said: ‘I think I could do that. I want to play for England. I could rock on that pitch right now.’ That’s when my mindset changed. When I say something out loud to other people, especially my mum, I feel an obligation to do it.”
Brown realised that dream in 2017 when she picked up her first cap against Canada, just two years after she first started playing rugby. At the time, she was training to become a firefighter with Kent Fire and Rescue, and had to get permission to leave the course and play.
In 2019 she received a professional contract with England, which she says was “completely foreign ground” for her, as she had always maintained a paid career alongside athletics. “The concept of being paid to play rugby was baffling. I just couldn’t work it out. I kept asking questions like where has the money come from? What do I have to give you in exchange? What about work? It just made no sense to me at first.”
Rugby had famously remained an amateur sport for men until it was gradually professionalised from 1995 onwards, with the women’s game now undergoing a similar transition. The Women’s Six Nations is currently made up of amateur, semi-professional and professional players.
Brown wants all teams to be professional as soon as possible. “It’s a privilege to have these contracts and I hope they put pressure on the other nations to invest and bring the standards of rugby up.”
A week in the life of a professional women’s rugby player involves a lot of planning, says Brown. During the current Six Nations tournament, the players are in camp at Pennyhill Park in Surrey. England Rugby’s base is a microcosm of Surrey: a luxury five-star hotel and spa is on one side of a path, and rugby pitches and tackle bags are on the other side. “The packed lunches we get from the hotel are amazing,” she laughs. “We get them delivered to us and we sit with them on our laps like schoolchildren.”
The week is geared towards a Saturday game with gym sessions, contact training, coached drills such as line outs and scrums, plus lots of active recovery and reviewing previous games. The hardest part is Wednesday – “the day that makes you question your life choices” as Brown describes it – where coaches push players the hardest, tiring them out to ensure they play to their high standards under pressure and fatigue. There’s also lots of time to rest and receive treatment, one of the many benefits of being a professional player.
Brown is keen to make rugby more accessible and improve the perception people may have of the game. “I think everyone sees rugby as a middle-class sport or at least just for certain socioeconomic groups. Maybe in the men’s game it’s more of an issue, but it’s definitely not the case in women’s rugby. It’s a sport for all, regardless of social status or your body size, or anything like that.
“One of the main barriers is the perception that you need money to enjoy rugby or you need to be middle class. But you don’t have to be rich to come and watch rugby – for the women’s game it can literally cost £10 – and you don’t need to be well off to play it.”
Brown is known for her hair, which she wears naturally to show other young girls with similar hair that they can play sport. She wants more people to watch women’s rugby and for girls and women to know it’s a sport for them, too. “We need all kinds of people to play rugby,” she says. “If you line up a women’s rugby team you can see how much they vary in size. We are all completely different and there’s a position for every type of body in rugby.”
Shaunagh Brown’s diary: a week in the England women’s rugby camp
Monday
After a game on a Saturday, Monday is spent in the gym and doing our PCR coronavirus tests (which we do twice a week). Because we are socially distancing there is no contact in the sessions, which means we can focus on putting our energy into the gym session. We have our own platform or section in the gym and just work on our own stuff.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, once our bodies are aching a bit less from the weekend’s game, we have a more traditional rugby training session. We might do what is called mapping: where we walk through game scenarios so we can understand the best thing to do in each situation. Slowing the game down and really understanding what we should be doing is a really useful part of our training sessions.
I might have a front row session, too – just for 20 minutes. After lunch, we might then do “unit work”, which is practising lifting and jumping for lineouts, scrums, and actually hitting each other as opposed to going softly.
After heavy training sessions we always have recovery – compression and ice! This helps us recover quickly. No matter what science they come up with, nothing beats ice for recovery.
Wednesday
Wednesdays are the hardest days in camp. We used to call it a “red” session because of its really high intensity and physicality. We go hard in our training for a short amount of time, have set breaks, and go again. You feel like you are dying, but actually it’s the whole point of the session. You need to be in that tired state to teach your body how to play when tired. If you can play when you are knackered, it makes it a little bit easier to play when you have energy.
On a Wednesday afternoon we will be in the gym again.
Thursday
Thursday is our day off, so I try to push myself to see how long I can sleep for. I aim for 12 hours, just to really get as much sleep in as I possibly can. There might be a couple of meetings but otherwise it’s our day to relax. We have to stay on site to keep in our bubble, but I might walk around the beautiful site just to stretch my legs and get some vitamin D.
I also do some yoga, I might use a massage gun, or just do anything to help my body recover from the training load.
Friday
On Friday we have the captain’s run, a short, sharp session that we usually do at the same time as the kick off the following day. There’s no hanging around, it’s just getting the training done.
Saturday
Saturday is game day! The most important thing (for me, anyway) is sorting out the food situation for the day. If it’s an early kick-off then you have to decide whether to wake up early and have breakfast plus a pre-match lunch, or to just have a late breakfast. If the game is later then you might have to have dinner before the game, too.
Sometimes there’s a lot of waiting around before a game but the most important thing is to not peak too soon. You have to stay calm in the day so you don’t use up too much energy before the match.
The match goes by in a flash and one thing I really miss is the time we spend with fans after the game. We used to go and chat to them, which was so special and something I love to do.
Sunday
After a game on the Saturday, Sunday is spent reviewing our performance, sorting out any injuries or niggles from the game, and recovering our bodies. Sunday mornings are hard because your body aches badly and you don’t want to move! But, once you remember the joy of playing rugby, you’re soon ready to go and do it all again.
GUINNESS is proud to be the first Official Partner of the Women’s Six Nations, and is working closely with a number of its own partners to increase visibility for the Women’s Six Nations. The brewer has launched an initiative to “Never Settle” until sport is a place where everyone can belong, regardless of their gender, race or sexuality. This initiative is part of a long-term commitment from GUINNESS to continue to grow inclusivity and accessibility for everyone in sport
