Zoe Aldcroft rummages in her rugby bag and pulls out a knitted figure. “This is Jonny,” beams the Red Roses lock, sporting a gap-toothed smile as she passes over a questionable lookalike of Jonny Wilkinson, England’s 2003 World Cup hero, in his Toulon kit.
Aldcroft was given it by a childhood friend when she left home, aged 16, to pursue rugby at Hartpury College. It was also the age she discovered that there was an England women’s team – she had lacked female rugby role models growing up so Wilkinson filled the void.
Fast forward more than a decade and England’s new captain is sitting in a coffee shop that sponsors Gloucester-Hartpury, the three-time Premiership Women’s Rugby champions and the club that have helped to mould Aldcroft into an irrepressible force in the game.