{"id":83865,"date":"2025-08-21T02:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83865\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T02:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T02:19:09","slug":"englands-megan-jones-on-dealing-with-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/83865\/","title":{"rendered":"England\u2019s Megan Jones on dealing with grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Megan Jones is looking forward to a \u201cspecial occasion\u201d when she steps on to the pitch at the Women\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby World Cup<\/a> the year after both her parents died.<\/p>\n<p>Jones, whose dad Simon and mum Paula both died between August and December last year, is appearing at her first World Cup since 2017 and heads into this tournament as England vice-captain.<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old centre has been named in the starting 15 for the Red Roses\u2019 tournament opener against the United States at the Stadium of Light and, ahead of Friday\u2019s game, shared her experiences of dealing with grief.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Alex Groves on line-out\u00a0work<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/>Alex Groves on line-out\u00a0work<\/p>\n<p>Jones said: \u201cI think grief works in different ways. Those that have experienced grief, sometimes you\u2019re not always sad, sometimes you\u2019re happy and sometimes it doesn\u2019t hit you like that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt might hit me later or it might hit me in the moment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs soon as I step on that pitch, that\u2019s all I think about is rugby. That\u2019s probably one of my strengths, I don\u2019t tend to think too far beyond that. I never really thought of my mum and dad when they were out supporting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always led with my heart, I\u2019ll always be passionate about what I do and that means now a little bit more firepower, I guess, behind me with my mum and dad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be special. Last World Cup my dad was with me in 2017, that was lovely and beautiful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be another special occasion. It\u2019s going to be a lot of firsts, it\u2019s still only been a year since my dad hasn\u2019t been here.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a lot of emotions all in one, but they all come in different ways for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>England begin the tournament in Sunderland against the USA, who are ranked 10th in the world.<\/p>\n<p>USA head coach Sione Fukofuka has named 11 World Cup debutants in the matchday squad, including four in the starting 15.<\/p>\n<p>Ilona Maher \u2013 the world\u2019s most popular rugby player on social media with over eight million followers across her accounts \u2013 is one of those making her tournament bow and she lines up at 13 opposite Jones.<\/p>\n<p>Asked what it is like coming up against Maher, Jones said: \u201cI think physics would show that she\u2019s probably got a couple of inches on me and a couple of pounds as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think I\u2019ve always lived by, it\u2019s not the size of the dog, it\u2019s the size of the fight in the dog.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo matter who I come up against, no matter how many followers they\u2019ve got \u2013 she\u2019ll be thinking the same \u2013 it\u2019s how you perform on the pitch, which is the most important bit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI always lead with passion and pride. That\u2019s what I\u2019ll continue to do in whatever game we go against and whoever we go against.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Megan Jones is looking forward to a \u201cspecial occasion\u201d when she steps on to the pitch at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-83865","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\/83865","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=83865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}