As the officers pounced on the prisoner, the iPhone popped up from between his bum cheeks, right in front of Poppy Cleall. Meanwhile, roughly around the same time, twin sister Bryony, was regaining her rugby mojo in Exeter. Fortunately for both, their stories would soon converge in the far more salubrious surroundings of Twickenham, in the white of England.

It’s been a long eighteen months in the life of Saracens. But after tears, trials and retribution, against Ampthill, things begin to feel normal again. The fans – and Alex Goode – are back home. Plus, Maro Itoje has visited Doncaster; Lucy Wray has made new Premiership friends; Mark McCall has pitted his wits against the Crusaders; and Jackson Wray has managed to survive a four-children lockdown.

Gareth Davies earned £700 for wearing Patrick boots, Mark Ring hoped for the same, but instead, was handed a ‘Geoff Hunt’ squash racquet. He doesn’t play squash. Something wasn’t right, and he was going to do something about it.

At sixteen he was told he wouldn’t play for Wales. At seventeen he played for Gloucester and trained with England. At eighteen he was called up by Wales and, at nineteen, he scored for them.Now, at twenty, he’s about to become a British & Irish Lion.By 21, Louis Rees-Zammit might just be completely unstoppable.

Six hundred years of liquorice history aren’t likely to be forgotten in a hurry. And rightly so. But in Pontefract they could soon have another history-maker in their midst, a World Cup-winning head coach.

He made his senior debut at seventeen for Huntingdon & District Rugby, and then would make debuts for Cambridge, Nottingham and Randwick before finally making his league entrance for Northampton Saints. Then, before many had even heard of George Furbank, he was playing for England, against France, in the Six Nations. No pressure.

A teammate, seeing yet another journalist waiting to speak to Adam Hastings, ponders aloud if he is “the only player that plays for Glasgow”. Dave Rennie, Warriors’ deadpan coach, wanders past, sipping a mug of piping-hot soup, and offers his own suggestion: “Make sure you kick him in the nuts!”

He was supposed to be the epitome of a Bath man, finishing his rugby days in the club less than a mile from his home. But as he called bingo numbers in a town hall in France, helping an old lady win a telly, Dave Attwood knew things hadn’t quite gone to plan.

As he lay in the back of the ambulance, with his first concussion, the medics were concerned about Ben John’s nose: clearly broken, they thought. But it wasn’t: just a gift from his father’s side. The head though, that was the start of a different story altogether.

In the car journey from Cardiff to Newcastle with team-mate Epi Taione, Vili Ma’asi broke down and couldn’t stop crying. He was 26 and had just said goodbye to Tonga for a professional rugby life. The only problem was, he didn’t have a club yet.

Amid the smoke-billowing industrial landscape of Port Talbot, where the core ingredients of steel are blasted at 1,200°C to produce five million tonnes of the hard stuff every year, a ‘mother’s boy’ called Richard Hibbard was kicked into shape.

In a town of one coffee shop and one pub in the South Island of New Zealand, the man with the greatest scrum brain on the planet is giving out advice to the rugby world. He used biomechanics, ballet dancers, and cage fighters to perfect the All Black scrum and now, at the request of forwards coaches the world over, Mike Cron is on Zoom. Listen up.

At 39, and after 115 England appearances, four Rugby World Cup campaigns and fourteen years playing for Darlington Mowden Park, Tamara Taylor felt she was being forced out of top-flight English rugby before her time. But then she fired up her Twitter account.

This dad of four girls never quite replaced playing rugby in his life, he struggles with it still. But he does suggest solutions for many of its ills, and women are at the heart of many of them. Once he’s done fixing rugby, then it’s time for something else. House of Lords, maybe?

She was the first woman to earn level 3 and level 4 coaching badges. The first woman to lead a men’s side on a three-promotion, double-Twickenham victory, 62-game unbeaten run. The first woman to get a full-time coaching post at a Premiership club. But to coach the country she helped to two World Cup finals? Not even an interview. And that, is what ‘almost’ broke Giselle Mather.

“Zoe Aldcroft is powerful, athletic and hard to tackle. An intelligent rugby player, from playing in the backline, her understanding of ball carrying in space and running lines is excellent. Zoe hasn’t reached anywhere near the potential she has, and is already playing for England. She can keep getting better and better. There is much more to come.” – Tamara Taylor, 115 caps, England

Armand Vaquerin left the bar, returned to his car and came back with a gun. He challenged the bar to a game of Russian roulette and, when there were no takers, he decided to play anyway. Moments later he was dead. At least, that’s one version of events.

Driving home from the Olympics that was supposed to be her sporting finale, Non Evans MBE started to cry. She was shattered. A career traversing international rugby, judo, wrestling and weightlifting was over, and there was nothing she could do about it. Life was also set to get worse before it got better, and she could enjoy the daffodils once again.

Catapulting sweets at sixth-formers, letting in goals ‘left, right and centre’ at football, running riot against Colston’s and the sight of Lesley Vainikolo have all played a role in the shaping of Ellis Genge. But, key to it all, was Leicester’s shit night life.

Mui Thomas’ skin grows fourteen times faster than normal. She can’t sweat, kids (and parents) have pointed at her in the street, her bones have been so brittle they were compared to that of a 110-year-old and, put simply, doctors didn’t expect her to survive. Yet, the match official is living her best life and, she says, rugby has played a huge part in that.