When the loosehead prop Hannah Botterman made her England debut, on the sidelines, her aunt shed a tear; knowing full well what it meant to wear the Red Rose for the first time. Jane Everett also knows what it feels like to lift the Rugby World Cup, having been part of the victorious England side of 1994, a feat her niece\u2019s team will try to emulate on home soil this September.<\/p>\n
Everett, an unused replacement tighthead prop when England beat the United States 38-23 in Edinburgh, also coached another member of the 2025 cohort, the prop Kelsey Clifford, at Old Albanian Juniors once she retired from playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been great to see\u00a0them actually live my dream,\u201d says Everett, who played American Football before transferring her skills to\u00a0rugby. \u201cWhen I played it was always: \u2018Wouldn\u2019t\u00a0it be amazing to be a professional rugby player?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember having to ask for time off work to be able to be in the squad in Scotland and then we had to pay for our own kit. So the tracksuit and the socks and the shorts and then the actual England shirt \u2013 I think we had two \u2013 that had to be washed between games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Botterman\u2019s connections don\u2019t stop with Everett \u2013 her uncle, Gregg, played for Saracens and both her parents played for local clubs. Her mother worked her way up to the England Academy but went no further. \u201cShe actually blames it\u00a0on me, because she fell\u00a0pregnant with me when she was coming\u00a0up,\u201d Botterman told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
Katalina Amosa joined her brother Brandon Paenga-Amosa as an Australia international this year. Photograph: Chris Hyde\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s always been around rugby clubs. So there\u2019s no surprise that when she was old enough that her dad took her to their local rugby club, Datchworth,\u201d Everett says of her niece.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Hannah got selected to play for England, that was obviously quite a proud moment because I knew what she was feeling. I went and saw her play and get her first cap and that was just really special; when they lined up on the pitch and sang the national anthems that brought a tear to my eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old Botterman\u2019s family legacy is one of many among the 512 players assembling in England; from the New Zealand winger Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, whose father, Kawhena Woodman and uncle Fred Woodman both won caps for the All Blacks, to Canada\u2019s captain Sophie de Goede, whose parents Stephanie and Hans preceded her as leaders of the women\u2019s and men\u2019s national teams.<\/p>\n
Botterman\u2019s fellow Red Rose, Maddie Feaunati, has been one of the statement selections in the John Mitchell era and the back-row is one of four sporty sisters whose father Zak Feaunati is a former Samoa No 8, who also played Jonah Lomu in the 2009 film Invictus.<\/p>\n
Siblings are highly represented at England 2025, including those from home nations teams; Wales even boast two pairs of sisters from the same north Wales club, Nant Conwy \u2013 the Pyrs sisters, Gwenllian and Alaw and the Metcalfes, Nel and Branwen \u2013 while Rhea and Ellian Clarke are set to represent Scotland. Meanwhile, when the Wallaroos hooker Katalina Amosa made her debut this year, she said her already-capped Wallaby brother Brandon Paenga-Amosa was more emotional than she was. \u201cI called him and he was all red\u00a0and flustered. He\u00a0was really excited. He\u2019s been giving me advice every day since I\u00a0told him. He just\u00a0told\u00a0me to go do my job and just make the family proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Portia Woodman-Wickliffe of New Zealand (right) is part of a famous sporting dynasty. Photograph: Dylan Martinez\/Reuters<\/p>\n Amosa and Paenga-Amosa were preceded in Australia\u2019s sibling combinations by Adiana Talakai and her brother Sam. Talakai, another hooker selected in Jo Yapp\u2019s squad for England 2025, also counts England legends Mako and Billy Vunipola among her cousins.<\/p>\n Welsh-born Sisilia Tuipulotu packed down in the opposing front row to Amosa during Wales\u2019s recent World Cup warm-up tour. Tuipulotu\u2019s father, Sione, played for Tonga and her brother Kepu plays for Bath and England Under-20s while the Wales men\u2019s No 8, Taulupe Faletau, is\u00a0her cousin. France, meanwhile, have called up uncapped 23-year-old prop Makarita Baleinadogo, the daughter of former Fiji centre Daniele who started at her father\u2019s then club, AS Macon aged seven and boasts a degree in languages from the University of Grenoble.<\/p>\n As family pedigree goes though, few can top that of Woodman-Wickliffe, rugby union\u2019s leading World Cup try-scorer.<\/p>\n Not only did her father and uncle turn out for the All Blacks but her aunt, Te Aroha Keenan, played international netball for New Zealand. Where rugby wasn\u2019t an option for Woodman-Wickliffe at school, she played netball under her aunt, the school\u2019s coach and deputy principal. Her skill and determination saw her selected for the national netball team, before a leap of faith to a grassroots initiative that selected talent for a new sevens squad for the Rio Olympics.<\/p>\n After winning a second Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024, she said: \u201cI\u2019m just proud of the person I\u2019ve become, proud of the journey I\u2019ve had. I\u2019ve gone from a shy netball girl to a rugby player who is now world-renowned.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the loosehead prop Hannah Botterman made her England debut, on the sidelines, her aunt shed a tear;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-75155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}