{"id":598102,"date":"2026-04-10T15:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598102\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:18:10","slug":"you-come-back-different-how-rugby-players-change-after-motherhood-womens-six-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598102\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You come back different\u2019: how rugby players change after motherhood | Women’s Six Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

When England begin their defence of the Women\u2019s Six Nations against Ireland on Saturday<\/a> at Twickenham they will be without Zoe Stratford, Lark Atkin-Davies and Rosie Galligan as they prepare to become mothers for the first time. The England rugby league player Kelsey Gentles \u2013 who has returned to her sport as a different player and person \u2013 says the World Cup winners should embrace the imminent metamorphosis.<\/p>\n

Gentles left the Women\u2019s Super League as a sparkling outside back in 2023; when she returned the following year, having given birth to her daughter Maia, she was a prop who blasted holes in defensive lines. She enjoyed a glorious comeback, scoring the winning try as York Valkyrie clinched the Grand Final, but there were challenges along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no cookie-cutter template to follow when you come back,\u201d says Gentles, who made her Wigan debut last weekend. \u201cPregnancy isn\u2019t easy. Every woman and her body reacts differently. I gained a lot of weight and was breastfeeding. I got really extreme morning sickness and a pelvic problem towards the end, so I could barely walk. Those things were difficult to deal with.<\/p>\n

Kelsey Gentles celebrates after winning the Grand Final with York Valkyrie in 2024. Photograph: Craig Hawkhead\/Alamy<\/p>\n

\u201cI could no longer play on the wing. My body had changed, so I had to learn a whole new position. I was learning how to operate as a forward \u2013 tactically and physically \u2013 and was trying to not mess up too much. Mentally, the person you are pre-baby and the person you are when you come back is very different \u2013 and you have a child you have to keep alive. That was a difficult pill to swallow, not just for me, but for a lot of people around me as well. My priorities had shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte Caslick has excelled throughout her career, reaching the top in rugby league, union and sevens<\/a>, but she knows she will face a new challenge when she returns to elite sevens, with its high-octane bursts of sprinting action, after giving birth to her first child. \u201cSevens is definitely a young person\u2019s game,\u201d says the 31-year-old World Cup winner and Olympic champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average age in my team is 23 \u2013 much younger than the Wallaroos. There were a few mums in the Wallaroos team that do juggle both, but sevens, with the schedule of the travelling and just the nature of the sport, attracts a younger crowd. I would love to mix and match sevens and 15s if I can, and be involved in another Olympics and a home World Cup but, obviously, my life is going to change pretty drastically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caslick does not have any teammates who have overcome the unwieldy practicalities of being a mum on tour, but she has seen opponents return to the circuit. \u201cDhys Faleafaga, who played for New Zealand last season, has twins and her partner is also an All Black sevens player, so they were both travelling and had their twins at home,\u201d says Caslick. \u201cGiven the world circuit, and being away for a few days every two weeks or every month, it will be a bit more challenging. I hope to come back. But 15s does give me a little bit more flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian rugby player Charlotte Caslick is pregnant with her first child. Photograph: Jessica Hromas\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Deciding when to announce their pregnancies is another issue for players. Knowing she was pregnant but wanting to wait until the 12-week mark to go public, Caslick had to sit out the recent leg of the HSBC sevens<\/a> tour in Perth. \u201cIt was hard making up reasons for why I\u2019m not playing! It\u2019s much easier being honest with people,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s the longest I haven\u2019t been on the field for a while, but I\u2019ve loved watching the girls. They\u2019re having a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plenty of athletes have returned from childbirth and matched their previous levels. Tennis player Elina Svitolina enjoyed a spectacular return<\/a> after having a little girl, reaching the French Open quarter-finals and Wimbledon semi-finals in her first two grand slams as a mother; footballer Joy Fawcett had two children when she won the World Cup in 1999 and three when she won an Olympic gold medal in 2004; Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won world and Olympic gold medals after giving birth to her son Zyon; and the rugby league player Holly Speakman was a grandmother by the time she retired at the age of 42.<\/p>\n

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won gold in the 100 metres event at the World Championships in 2019. Photograph: Michael Kappeler\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Gentles has taken Speakman\u2019s place in the Wigan team so does not have to look far for inspiration, but returning to the sport has not been straightforward. She broke on to the international rugby league scene in 2019, when she played for England in the world nines in Perth \u2013 her chase back and try-saving tackle against Australia<\/a> went viral \u2013 and was nominated for the Woman of Steel award.<\/p>\n

She is now 26 and in a very different place emotionally and physically. \u201cWhen I was 19, I was probably how some of the young girls feel now: you turn up, you\u2019re just playing rugby, there\u2019s no pressure, you\u2019re just there having fun. After Maia was born, I came back pretty fast. I only really had a couple of months off. I was dealing with it by myself, at first, finding things out. Every week was different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prioritised rugby when I was there, and it was very important to me, but I struggled to have the brain capacity to think about it when I left. You have a whole world going on outside. I was a player at York, but a mother everywhere else. It was hard to switch roles sometimes, especially when your baby might be sick, or teething. People expect the commitment that you had before you had a baby. I\u2019m not the same person. My priorities have shifted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pregnant England players missing the Six Nations \u2013 including Abbie Ward, who is expecting her second child \u2013 are benefiting from a new agreement that ensures they have 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave and funds for their children to accompany them to matches. England\u2019s rugby league players are part-time so do not have that support. Gentles combines motherhood, playing for Wigan and her job at the children\u2019s charity NSPCC.<\/p>\n

When times were tough, she looked to her England teammate Georgie Dagger for advice. \u201cWhen I was having difficult days, accepting my body for what it was, and how it changed, Georgie told me: \u2018Kelsey, it took me three years to get back to how my body was before.\u2019 My husband [the former London Broncos player Jacob Ogden] would say: \u2018You don\u2019t need to keep doing this.\u2019 But if I just give up, then anyone else that gets pregnant, the expectation will be that it\u2019s too hard to come back. I didn\u2019t want to send that message, that I was mentally weak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about when women have babies you just become a mother and everything else falls by the wayside. I didn\u2019t want to be that person. I love rugby. I don\u2019t want to lose my identity. I wanted to still be Kelsey. I just have a child. I\u2019m so glad I didn\u2019t give up, because what example would that set for Maia?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gentles has a message for Caslick and the expectant England players: \u201cBe kind to yourself, because there will probably be a lot of people that aren\u2019t kind to you, that will compare you to your pre-baby self, when that person essentially doesn\u2019t really exist any more. Being a mother is the greatest gift in the world and I don\u2019t see why you can\u2019t do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow No Helmets Required on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When England begin their defence of the Women\u2019s Six Nations against Ireland on Saturday at Twickenham they will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-598102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}