by Ask former rugby league international Courtney Winfield-Hill about her playing career and she will tell you, half-jokingly, that she is not retired, but merely on a sabbatical. It’s just that so far, that “sabbatical” has lasted two years (she hasn’t set foot on a rugby pitch since the end of the 2022 World Cup) and has involved a dizzying number of coaching assignments and a return to her original sport: cricket.
His latest assignment is to be assistant coach of the England women’s team on their tour of Ireland, which begins on Saturday with the first of three one-day internationals in Belfast, followed by two T20s in Dublin. The matches are full internationals, but a clash with World Cup preparations in the United Arab Emirates means England are effectively sending an A team.
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Up to seven players could make their international debuts, including 30-year-old Georgia Adams, who had probably given up hope of an England call-up, and 19-year-old batsman Seren Smale, whose first chance to represent her country at senior level comes much sooner than expected.
“We may have to build some time into the calendar for the cap presentations,” Winfield-Hill says. “But the exciting thing is that the stories behind each of these caps will be very different. It’s a unique opportunity.”
If going from rugby league to cricket coaching seems like an unusual career trajectory, consider it normal for the 37-year-old: how many other women born and raised in rural Queensland have gone on to represent England in rugby league? And how many have done so after a two-decade absence from the sport, spent playing Australian cricket and the Big Bash? The explanation for it all comes down to that purest of human experiences: love.
Winfield-Hill’s breakthrough moment was meeting England cricketer Lauren Winfield while they were teammates for Brisbane Heat in the Women’s Big Bash League. After two years of negotiating a long-distance relationship, the couple settled in England and are now married. It was a chance encounter with an Instagram post from Leeds Rhinos looking for players that drew her to rugby league; she later qualified for England through residency. In the meantime, the move also prompted her to rethink her career, moving away from teaching to become a coach.
Is it all Lauren’s fault? “It always is,” Courtney says. “If I’d stayed in Australia, I might not have made the leap. But given that I’ve changed half the world and changed my whole life, I thought, ‘Why not change my career too?'”
So far, the turnaround has paid off. She’s been given a first gig with Lauren’s team, the Northern Diamonds, based in Headingley. Yes, she’s coached her wife; yes, there have been a few squalls; and yes, Courtney has competed in some good old Australian luge races.
Since hanging up her rugby boots, she has held assistant coaching roles with the Heat in the WBBL, Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Women’s Premier League, Trent Rockets in the Hundred and the England A and U19 teams. “I love being in different groups,” she says.
She is known for her unconventional methods: at the Diamonds she introduced the concept of Fun Fridays and had England senior wicketkeeper Bess Heath train as a left-handed batsman to get her used to batting ambidextrously. “I really think outside the box,” she says. “Sometimes things get too serious. I’d like to think you can still take things seriously without taking away the fun, the adventure and the experimentation.”
Winfield-Hill’s other unique trait is that she is openly gay. English cricket coaching remains a heavily male and heteronormative space: six of the eight regional women’s teams are coached by men and there are more men named Jon Lewis involved in coaching the England women’s team than women.
Winfield-Hill credits Yorkshire’s head of coaching development, Kevin Gresham, for signing her up for the England and Wales Cricket Board’s inaugural Level 2 coaching course in 2018, but acknowledges the problem: “There were 52 people on that course and one woman, and that woman was me.”
So is she a role model for the women and girls she coaches? “It’s not something you’re conscious of, but you just hope that you can leave a positive mark wherever you are, and if people want to follow in those footsteps, or if they want to follow their own path, then that’s great.”
It’s not yet clear what the future holds for Winfield-Hill. She hasn’t completely given up on rugby: in May she joined the Rugby Football League as a senior women’s and girls’ partner, and she’ll be heading to Australia in October for another stint as a WBBL coach.
She doesn’t say whether she might one day take on a senior international coaching role: “I don’t set myself any goals. There will be unexpected things that I’m passionate about and I’ll be happy to jump into those spaces.”
One thing is clear: English cricket would do well to retain its talent, for as long as the ‘gap year’ lasts.
