‘I’d not heard of rugby league’: Mary Coleman’s journey from Cambridge graduate to England cap

The Wigan prop only took up the sport in her 20s when she moved north to work for the Home Office but now hopes to play at the World Cup There was something old-school about the England women’s team that beat France 38-4 in Toulouse last week. With eight players from Wigan, five from Leeds and three from St Helens, it looked like a Great Britain side of the early 2000s. But among the Wigan contingent was a player with a story that feels very 2026: Mary Coleman, a prop from Kent who works for…