Mould-breaking rugby players, male or female, are pretty rare. By almost any measure, though, England’s Sarah Bern is different. As a teenager she once aspired to be a downhill skier and sporting orthodoxy has never grabbed her. The result is a one-of-a-kind athlete with the ability, when the Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off next month, to illuminate the gloomiest of autumns.
England’s 32-player squad for the tournament will be unveiled on Tuesday and if there is anyone on the list guaranteed to give it everything it is the 25-year-old Bern. Powerful tighthead props are not supposed to score long-range tries from halfway or sidestep like sevens players but, in her mind, if feels entirely normal. “It probably excites me more because people are always going: ‘Oh, you’re a prop.’ They probably don’t look at bigger players and think: ‘They’re going to enjoy running in open field.’ I always have done.”
