'Rugby is my happy place' - Interview with England Rugby League Star, Amy Hardcastle

Amy with one of her team mates playing for St Helens

This month should have been the Rugby League World Cup hosted here in the UK but due to the pandemic, it has been postponed to next year. It was great speaking to one of England’s stars, Amy Hardcastle, earlier in the year before we knew it had been moved to 2022.

Amy’s story into playing rugby league is relatable for many girls. She used to play football with her older brother and his friends and as she says, she was ‘one of the boys’. Playing with the boys gave her confidence – they knew she was good; she knew she had the ability, but football wasn’t really her calling.

She’d watched rugby union being played by her village side and had seen rugby league on TV. She preferred the idea of holding the ball in your hands and running than having it at your feet as in football. Amy played with the boys at Friday night rugby training and it happened again: they told her she’d be great as a rugby player and it was a shame she couldn’t be on their side. Those words from her male peers, spurred her on; she kept them with her.

In all great sporting stories, there’s a moment when the protagonist realises what their destiny must be. For Amy Hardcastle, at college, her moment began with a poster. The poster was advertising a new girls’ rugby league team in Siddal, Calderdale in Yorkshire.

She admits that she was a 17 year old who hung around with her friends, probably smoking but this poster was her ‘lightbulb moment’. She had to weigh up carrying on doing what she was doing versus doing something different, doing something with her life.

“People think I’m really confident but I’m not really. I hate new environments; I don’t like being the new person. But this passion I had inside me, I wanted to play rugby league. I had to overcome that.”

— AMY

And thank goodness she did.