The gusting howls of autumn have begun to buffet England’s Bristol base with more wild weather forecast but Tatyana Heard, as so often seems to be the case, is a picture of calm. It is the week of a Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final for the Red Roses, an encounter with Scotland affording the home favourites a chance to break their own record winning streak, but, true to their character, little has changed for John Mitchell’s side.
Plenty, though, has changed for Heard in the last few years, after experiencing tempests of tumult early in her career. The 30-year-old is now as established a starter as any in Mitchell’s squad but her journey to being at the centre of much of what the Red Roses do well contained plenty of bumps. By the age of 24, Heard had torn her anterior cruciate ligament three times, the third coming just as she was beginning to break into the England side; her professional contract was soon taken away, forcing her into a part-time job at Asda as she recovered, recuperated and came again.
