Since their contracts were stripped back to part-time last summer, Great Britain Sevens players have had to find alternative employment and teams to keep their passion alive.

Abbie Brown leads out a GB team including Meg Jones (10) and Holly Aitchison (11) at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 Ellie Kildunne; Helena Rowland, Meg Jones, Jade Shekells, Alex Matthews; Holly Aitchison, Natasha Hunt. Even with Matthews, more usually in the back row, deployed as an emergency wing, it is a punchy England backline. Six of the seven played in the Red Roses' World Cup final win over Canada last year. Before that though, all seven played top-level sevens. "Some of the world's best 15 players have come through sevens," says GB Sevens player Abbie Brown. "That Red Roses backline was our sevens squad at one point. Brown's exasperation is not that those former team-mates are now excelling in 15s. She is proud of their achievements. Instead, it is that the team that moulded them has been stripped back, scaled down and sent under. In July, Great Britain's full-time sevens programme was scrapped to save money. Instead of training together throughout the year, the men's and women's players only come together for tournaments.