LIKE SO many players, and not all of them English, Lark Atkin-Davies drew inspiration from watching Jonny win the World Cup for England all those years ago. She was eight years old at the time and it lit a fuse in her. But a deeper desire stemmed from much closer to home.
“My dad played at university, across the front row,” she explains. “Whenever we had a ball to chuck about, it was always a rugby ball. It was always that thing that I did with him. In the garden, at the beach, he encouraged me to chuck a ball about and to do what I enjoy. And when I found rugby I absolutely loved it, so it was a no-brainer.”
Dad Matt was only part of the equation in their snug Shropshire cottage. Fern, one of her two older sisters, was a talented swimmer, good enough to compete for Great Britain at junior level, and Lark was in awe at her commitment.
“She trained hours that
