When Sadia Kabeya was learning her trade as a No 7, there was one person she wanted to play like – and it wasn’t Courtney Lawes, or Peter O’Mahony, or Siya Kolisi. “I had no interest in watching men’s games,” she says, shaking her head. Her inspiration was Marlie Packer, the woman who has been wearing the No 7 jersey for England for nearly a decade.
Last November, for the final half-hour of the World Cup final, Kabeya filled Packer’s shoes, in only her eighth international appearance. It’s a huge validation of the 21-year-old’s talent that she will start alongside her in Saturday’s Women’s Six Nations opener against Scotland – playing at No 6 for the first time in her life.
