Rooted in PWR: Abby Dow

Abby Dow is aiming to break records and create a legacy this summer, but after spending eight years in the PWR she knows that her game remains rooted in family.

The Red Roses wing, who has accrued 54 international caps, was first introduced to the game when she would watch her older brother play at local club Maidenhead Rugby Club where her dad, Paul Dow, also coached.

Family has remained a core part of her rugby experience as she has gone on to represent Wasps, Harlequins and Trailfinders.

“It’s really lovely having the family element of it. That's really important to me,” she said.

“Recently, I went out in Winchester, which is local to where I live, and watched all the young girls play mini-style rugby.

“Then I went home, went to my mum's, which is down the road, my brother came over and we all sat down and watched the men's game together and we were shouting at the ref - although the ref is always correct, I'd like to note.

“But the point is, rugby isn't just on the pitch, it's about the community and it's about the family that comes with it. For my family and for myself, there's definitely been a family progression and a journey through that.”

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Having first picked up the ball alongside her sister having been bored on the sidelines at Maidstone, she played for the club until she was 12 before moving to Reading Rugby Club for their women’s section.

From there it was straight into the Wasps set up and while looking back Dow can see there were barriers in place to her progression through rugby, the example set by her family made it seem straightforward.

“There are so many things that you do in life and don’t realise until you grow up the barriers that were there. In my family, we weren't treated any differently,” she explained.

“With me and my sister, for me personality wise, competition drove everything. It didn’t matter, I just wanted to be the best.

“I was the youngest child, which means all the deadlines were set by the other two and I had to make sure I could smash them every time. I did have a good role model with my brother and sister.”

In fact, despite how hindsight might paint it, it was not always Dow who seemed destined to become the England star of the family.

Older sister Ruth, who has appeared for England and Wasps, is hailed by Dow as the star until injury put an early stop to her career.

“If you ask any of the girls who went through age groups with us, they'll say Ruth was the England star,” she said.

“Marcus Smith has got a younger brother playing. I would be the younger brother in comparison.

“That is how much Ruth was the superstar. For her to not care, it meant that I didn't care.”

But with the same pace that Dow brings to the wing, it was her name that rose to the top of the game as her England debut in 2017 arrived with five tries in her first two games.

And while Dow speaks of surviving the emotional affair, she hit the ground running in her international career as her first Six Nations arrived with three starts and three tries to boot.

“With debuts it's a weird one. You normally get a lot of sense of relief because there's so much emotion behind it but at the end of the day, you just need to get on the pitch and you just need to survive,” she recalled.

“It doesn't matter how well you play because it's too emotional of a day to actually aim to achieve and strive.

“For me, I was glad that I'd managed to hit that milestone in my life, but I also had a massive desire to do more.”

And just as she strived to achieve more back then, fulfilling that by becoming an irreplaceable presence in the Red Roses’ backline, she has similar ambitions for their impact this summer.

Ideas for what exactly Dow and her England teammates could achieve was first brought to life during a career-high experience at the 2021 World Cup in New Zealand.

“It's really, really exciting,” she said. “What ended up happening from the last World Cup and the lives that we were able to change and inspire in terms of the number of girls that were taking up rugby, the number of boys that were taking up rugby because of girls.

“We did that on the other side of the world on a World Cup that was at 4am in the morning.

“Imagine what we're going to do and imagine how we're going to rejuvenate rugby in a generation through a home World Cup. That’s a privilege to be part of that and hopefully add to it.”

And as Dow aims to share the family she has created through her time with England and in the PWR with an even bigger audience than before, her ambitions do not start small.

“I'd like our legacy to be that we have won,” she asserted. “We're a team that have achieved a lot, but I wouldn't say we've got a legacy yet.

“We've smashed records. We've got the biggest crowds. We've got the most consecutive games won in a row. We've got all of these records, but have we got a World Cup?

“We are an inspiration and as a team we've worked really hard to continue to drive that. But I would love for us to achieve a legacy and that would probably have to come from being the pinnacle of all areas of the sport.”