Some experiences don’t just stay with you. They change you. This is a series of personal stories from our colleagues about the moments that shifted how they think, lead, and work. Hear from our Strategic Creative Director, Kate O’Connor
I wasn’t a terribly sporty kid. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do sport and exercise, it just wasn’t a big part of my life. My parents believed in trying new things, to get as well-rounded an education as we could. I performed on stage, wrote stories and poems, learned the piano and the clarinet, learned tap dancing and jazz, and embraced play as much as possible.
But sport didn’t feature much. I was sent to football training for a time, because my dad and my brother were involved in the club, but I never caught the bug and lost interest fairly quickly.
But I knew I loved rugby. Both my parents are huge fans. I was reared on Irish rugby, spending many happy Saturdays at the local pub shouting “Come on Ireland!” at a massive boxy TV (it was the 90s) in an ill-fitting green jersey that was a hand-me-down from my dad.
I wanted to understand the game better. I wanted to know the rules inside out, and I decided the best way to do that would be to learn to play. When a few of us girls asked our secondary PE teacher if we could, we were told, no, girls play netball and hockey (it was the noughties).
But I went to do my undergrad at Cardiff University in 2008. And they have a Ladies Rugby team.
What happened
On a crisp October day, we had our first team outing: us newbies on the second team, going up against a local women’s club side. To say I was absolutely terrified would be a complete understatement.
At the beginning of the second half, I found myself on the wing in defence with a woman probably fifteen years my senior, easily six inches taller than me, and with a weight advantage that it would be unbecoming to describe in detail, hurtling towards me with the glee of a woman who clearly knew exactly what she was doing.
This was the moment. I was either going to become a rugby player or know definitively that it wasn’t for me.
I mentally spun through all the training we’d done in the prior few weeks, and heard my dad’s voice in my head, shouting at the TV in the pub: Get low. So that’s what I did. I wrapped her around the thighs, squeezed with all my might, and I (a Shetland pony of a woman) barrelled her into touch.
My team whooped and screamed, and a flood of confidence coursed through my body. And it’s never really left.
What I learned
That moment changed the trajectory of my life. Three things crystallised for me in an instant.
Preparation is everything. If I hadn’t been trained on how to make that tackle, I never would have made it.
Surround yourself with a team that works for each other. I knew that if I missed, my team still had my back – that gave me the confidence to give it everything I had.
And I can be fierce and strong. Being a woman is no barrier to either of those things.
I’ve gone on to play a lot of rugby and still do. It’s instilled a love of sport and exercise that has shaped my family life too. But the skills I learned on the rugby pitch have informed who I am as a colleague, as a leader, as a creative, and as a mother. My experience on that pitch that day changed everything.
