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#Post#: 66774--------------------------------------------------
Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: DOK
Date: May 24, 2021, 5:47 am
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From The Telegraph
HTML https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2021/05/21/team-mate-physio-coach-husband-meet-wards-power-couple-rugby/
'My team-mate, my physio, my coach… my husband': Meet the Wards,
rugby's power couple
Exclusive interview: Abbie Ward and husband Dave on a chance
first meeting, practising lineouts at home and their 'dream
partnership'
By Kate Rowan
21 May 2021 • 7:11pm
[img]
HTML https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/rugby-union/2021/05/21/TELEMMGLPICT000259049134_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqAn42fo-ub25UKGJAQWgg2S2dmClwgbjjulYfPTELibA.jpeg?imwidth=800[/img]
Abbie Ward: 'Dave is a hooker and I am a second row, so isn’t
that a dream partnership?' CREDIT: Heathcliff O'Malley
The physio room at Harlequins’ training base in Guildford is not
the first place you would imagine a great romance blossoming but
that is the incongruous setting for the first meeting between
Abbie and Dave Ward three years ago.
Back then, Abbie Scott - as she was called - had just joined
Harlequins Women from Darlington Mowden Park Sharks. With a
chuckle at her now husband’s expense she admits she had "no idea
who Dave was when I got to Quins" but the club's progressive
stance in becoming the first club in the Premier 15s to
integrate their men’s and women’s training bases gave the pair a
chance to meet.
Abbie was in need of some volunteers from the men’s side to wish
colleagues from the women’s team well and she approached England
scrum-half Danny Care before the man who would one day become
her husband. "Dave just happened to be there with a big smile on
his face, he seemed like an approachable person and that is how
we met," she says.
With laughter Dave, who turns 36 this weekend, interjects to
tell how it went from chit-chat in the physio room to a first
date. "She asked me where was good to go for breakfast in
Guildford and I saw my cue, so I picked somewhere nice." "And
the rest is history," Abbie immediately chimes in. "Dave is a
hooker and I am a second row, so isn’t that a dream
partnership?"
Harlequins’ former director of rugby Conor O’Shea, who is now
the RFU’s director of performance and who knew Dave well from
his time at the Stoop, once joked that Abbie must have been
practicing receiving lineout throws from her husband. O’Shea may
have thought it was a word said in jest but it was never more
true.
With peels of laughter coming from 28-year-old Abbie, Dave
explains how throwing practice has always been a part of their
relationship.
"We did quite a bit of throwing practice in the garden and it
was like killing two birds with one stone, as I had to work on
throwing and she had to work on lineouts," he says
matter-of-factly before joining his wife laughing. "At another
point we lived in a flat with really high ceilings and Abbie
would stand on the kitchen counter-top and I would practice
throws to her there as well. That got a little bit dangerous, so
we had to stop!"
Dave left Harlequins in 2019 and took on a player-coach role at
Championship side Ampthill but will be joining Bristol Bears
Women as head coach from the start of next season. But a Premier
15s title could arrive in the Ward household well before that
with Abbie and her Harlequins side in the play-off semi-finals,
taking on Wasps at the Stoop in front of a crowd of 4,000 on
Saturday.
[img]
HTML https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/rugby-union/2021/05/21/TELEMMGLPICT000259197928_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqkL0lcem2cU_vCky64vAiXB9fCvnEd4bYq_fZqJZKsFQ.jpeg?imwidth=800[/img]
Abbie Ward runs with the ball during a Harlequins training
session at the Stoop CREDIT: Getty Images
After lifting a third consecutive Six Nations title, Abbie has
her eyes on the other prize she is yet to win: a World Cup
winner’s medal. She made her first final appearance in the loss
to New Zealand and Dave seems as invested in this quest for
success as his wife.
He explains that he looks at their relationship from two
perspectives: that of a fellow player and coach and then as a
husband. So, when he is in spouse mode that means he looks after
the housework when his wife is in England camp and will be doing
more as the World Cup draws nearer.
"As a husband, I like to make sure that everything is done
around the house in terms of the sheets are changed, the washing
done and everything is nice and tidy. I like to make sure that
after every England camp she comes back to a nice clean and tidy
home, so I know she can relax because Abbie can’t relax unless
everything is in its place," he says.
"So for me to be able to do that takes lots of pressure off her
in something that is relatively easy for me to do but will make
a big difference."
Abbie becomes more serious, explaining: "People often ask 'do
you not get sick of all the rugby?' But I think it is nice
having someone who can relate to everything that is going on,
the highs and the lows. I think it is quite unique to have your
other half who completely gets all of that work life but all of
the social parts of it as well."
It was during the first lockdown when Abbie was particularly
happy for the guidance Dave gave her, while she was suffering
from a difficult hip injury which kept her out of the game for
almost a year from late 2019 to last October.
"Last year in terms of navigating coming back through injury
over the past year during lockdown when I didn’t have any of my
usual support base, Dave was my team-mate, my physio, my coach.
I wasn’t only trying to get back from injury but I was also
trying to get re-contracted," she said.
"It was difficult and I was so glad Dave did that with me. He
became like a training partner when it can be incredibly
difficult physically and mentally. That meant so much to me, he
just got it."
The couple postponed their wedding from May to August of last
year and, in terms of lifting her spirits, this seemed to have
helped turn Abbie’s difficult year around. But any notion of the
two being described as a sporting couple is something the pair
shrugs off as they simply see it as having met at work.
"I don’t really think of us as a sporting couple, I know that
sounds weird but it is just our jobs. Until someone says it to
us, I don’t really think about it," says Dave, before Abbie has
the final say with one more laugh. "It is just one extra thing
we have in common. People sometimes think it could be overkill
but it is not at all."
#Post#: 66777--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: poorfour
Date: May 24, 2021, 6:00 am
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It's nice to read that story - I'd not realised that it was
uncommon for the men and women to share a training base (though
I learned over the weekend that Wasps Women are now top dog at
Twyford Avenue now that the pro men's team has gone to
Coventry).
Anyway - I wish them well. It'll be interesting to see what
happens in the Quins v Bears fixtures next season...
#Post#: 69007--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: BedfordshireBoy
Date: June 16, 2021, 3:53 pm
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Abbie now joining Dave at Bristol.
#Post#: 69008--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: poorfour
Date: June 16, 2021, 3:57 pm
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Well, that had an air of inevitability about it. Could lead to
some awkward moments when she’s not selected…
#Post#: 69014--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: Nico Wilson
Date: June 16, 2021, 10:53 pm
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--- Quote from: poorfour link ---
>
> Well, that had an air of inevitability about it. Could lead to
some awkward moments when she’s not selected…
>
--- End Quote ---
And the opposite
#Post#: 69039--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: A222Quin
Date: June 17, 2021, 4:51 am
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Plus Leanne Riley now as well.
#Post#: 69042--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: Quanks
Date: June 17, 2021, 5:16 am
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If the Bristol Women get to use the same training facility as
the Men I think you could see a lot of players moving there.
#Post#: 69043--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: JAA15A
Date: June 17, 2021, 5:21 am
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They do - and they have input from the coaches. There is an
increasing integration between the two squads with it now being
referred to as a single Rugby Programme all overseen by Pat.
#Post#: 69060--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: poorfour
Date: June 17, 2021, 6:28 am
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I don't think there's a salary cap in the women's game at the
moment, so I imagine Mr Lansdown's ability to offer a decent
salary could be quite a draw as well.
#Post#: 69062--------------------------------------------------
Re: Meet the Wards, rugby's power couple
DIR By: A222Quin
Date: June 17, 2021, 6:41 am
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Well, it was nice while it lasted then....
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