England women’s rugby ace Marlie Packer also works as a plumber when she isn’t tackling the world’s top rugby players.
Earlier this month, the England hero, from Yeovil, helped her team thrash New Zealand 32-23 at home. However, Packer only had a limited amount of time to celebrate as she was soon back at work as a plumber on the following Monday morning.
Rugby stars such as Packer and the England team are credited with helping to raise the profile of women’s rugby in the UK. She recently told This is Somerset, “With rugby, the profile is getting bigger all the time, but we are also getting younger people involved, which means they are all keeping fit. That was one of the biggest advantages for me when I was growing and it kept me on the straight and narrow.”
She explained that all the team work full-time as well as playing rugby and they want to get as much coverage of their sport as possible. She notes that her job as a plumber helps her succeed as a rugby player.
After the game against New Zealand, she is quoted as saying, “It is back to the normal routine and I was doing a boiler change with a gas engineer in Gloucester on Monday. It is back to reality and it keeps me grounded.”