Growing up in the rural West Yorkshire village of Riddlesden, Ellie Kildunne had a Roald Dahl quote pinned on her wall. “Lukewarm is no good,” it read, a maxim that Kildunne has carried with her to the top of her sport. These next few weeks, in which she will be the poster-girl of a home World Cup that England are overwhelming favourites to win, could catapult the 25-year-old to superstardom; it is a good job, then, that Kildunne appears totally at ease with the fame for which she has long felt destined.
“She was playing against my daughter in an under-15 game and I’d never seen anything like it,” former England head coach Simon Middleton once recalled of the first time he had seen Kildunne play. “Her team went 30 points down and she kept them in it, almost on her own, running in tries and kicking goals from the touchline. You don’t see that from many 15-year-olds.”
