Welsh fire, England captain - how Meg Jones became a dual-nation icon

Spor dünyasında son dakika haberi: Welsh fire, England captain - how Meg Jones became a dual-nation icon Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Meg Jones has won 35 for caps for England as well as travelling to three Olympics - Rio 2016, Tokyo 2021 and Paris 2024 - as part of the Great Britain Sevens set-up By Mike Henson Sport rugby union news reporter Published 5 minutes ago Asked to pick her favourite rugby memory, Meg Jones side-steps the obvious. England's Rugby World Cup win back in September may be the pinnacle of her professional career, but Jones spools back a few more years to when the stage was smaller, but, for her, the stakes were just as high - a trial for Cardiff Schoolboys Under-12 team. "It was just one of those turning points in your journey," Jones tells Sport.

"I was the only girl. I had trialled the year before and not got in. That was the first time I'd ever faced some sort of rejection or maybe things not going my way within the game.

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" Jones wasn't concerned that her gender was counting against her. Instead she saw parental bank balances tipping the selection scales. "It was very much the rich boys who got in," she says.

"If your dad was rich, you were probably getting in. My dad was a pipefitter welder from Cardiff, so I was part of a very working-class family. The team I played for - Glamorgan Wanderers - were from a very low socio-economic area in Cardiff, called Ely.

"I spoke to one of the boys from that trial literally years later and he said: 'You know, I was meant to be selected for that, but you were so good they had to pick you. ' "That day just cemented all the values and beliefs that I had in this game: If you're good enough, you're good enough. No matter where you're from, what you look like, what gender you are, whether you're big, small, all these things, if you're good enough, you will be respected.

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" England v Wales Women's Six Nations Saturday 25 April, 14:15 BST Ashton Gate, Bristol Watch on iPlayer Listen on Sounds Watch live on Two and iPlayer, commentary on Sounds and Radio 5 Sports Extra 2, with live text commentary on the Sport website and app On Saturday, Jones - a fluent Welsh speaker, born and raised in Cardiff - will captain England against her home country for the first time. On the face of it, crossing between camps in one of rugby's oldest and fiercest rivalries might strain respect. Jones, whose mother was English and who headed east to famous rugby nursery Hartpury College aged 16, is an exceptional case however.

Gwennan Harries taught Jones at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf, the school she attended in north west Cardiff, and remembers the reverence her rugby skills were held in. "I was a student teacher during Meg's time here," says Harries. "But I'd heard about her pretty quickly because she played in the boys team and she did carry the team a little bit.

"The boys actually loved her. They were a talented bunch themselves, but they were gutted when Meg had to stop playing with them.

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