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Transcript

"Oh Dad, can I play that?"
"No," he said "girls don't play rugby."
"Oh why?" I said.
"They just don't." he said "but you can do the water"
"No thanks."

So I tried karate instead, netball, skiing, even roller skating. I joined the Air Training Corps but watching rugby I loved best. Saturday after Saturday I spent with my father watching Abercynon AFC playing Bute Park or Senghennydd or Mountain Ash or Beddau or wherever.

I remember waiting for my dad outside the changing rooms knocking a rugby ball around and being surrounded by raw moist steam and the sounds of big, strong, burly men laughing and the smell of stagnant mud and winder-green wafting around my nose.

Just when I thought my teenage Saturdays had changed from rugby days into shopping days, my father came back from watching Pontypridd one day and announced, "I know where there's a girls' rugby team."

"What?" I said "Really? Really? I thought girls didn't play rugby Dad."
"Funnily enough, so did I." he said "but Bob Penberthy's daughter plays for Taffs Well. Do you want me to take you?"
"Yeah," I said "you'll have to buy me boots though."
"Wait and see if you like it first." he said.
"Oh I'll like it." I said.

And I was right, I liked it alright, I loved it! For eight seasons I trained and worked hard and played for many different teams until I achieved the one thing I thought impossible, playing rugby for Wales.

February 15th 2002 Wales vs. France at the Brewery Field, Bridgend - my first cap. As I stand waiting to go on the field in my dazzling red shirt the smell of stagnant mud and winter green drifts under my nose and I remember the days of watching rugby with my Dad and longing to play this forbidden game and it was then I vowed that I would play each and every game for Wales as if it's my last.

And now my Dad's watching me.