Nicola Davies is making up for lost time after only taking up rugby at the age of 36.

Now 42, the one-time football-loving Welsh mum-of-two has been well and truly converted to the oval ball game and is now one of the mainstays of Dursley Rugby Club's women's team.

A knee injury picked up while playing in a rugby festival in Barcelona at the start of the season sidelined her for six months but the second row is back playing now and loving every minute of it.

“I'm a very physical player and I love to get stuck in,” she said. “It's a contact game and I like all that. I'd never been involved in anything like rugby before and I just took to it right away.

“The team thing is something else. People are genuinely happy to see you and it's absolutely great.

“Rugby caters for players of all shapes and sizes. Teams need heavy players and I'm not slim. You need players who take it to the other team up front and then you need the faster players who play in the backs who don't like to tackle so much! It's inclusive for everybody.”

Nicola will be forever grateful to Charmaine Fitzgerald for persuading her to go down to training at Dursley six years ago.

“I'm sport mad but I hadn't played any sport since I left school in Wrexham,” she said. “I'm Welsh and you'd have thought I'd have played rugby but it was always football for me.

“Charmaine doesn't play anymore but she must have thought that rugby would suit me.” 

Not that Nicola made the best of starts with her new club.

She told The Local Answer: “I remember my first competitive game. It was against Newent and I got concussed. I didn't know where I was.

“Newent were the team to beat in those days. Now it's Drybrook, they are seriously good.”

Dursley, who are captained by second row Katie Thomson and are coached by men's first-team player Simon Camm, will face plenty of stern challenges next season when they enter a league for the first time.

They will be training every Wednesday over the summer in preparation for the new campaign.

Nicola, who is the club's PR and marketing manager, will be one of the driving forces behind the women’s team's bid to establish themselves at a new level.

Her injury in Spain, sustained when she found herself trapped at the bottom of a driving maul which then collapsed, in no way diminished her enthusiasm for the sport. 

Not that Nicola has completely turned her back on football. “I was in France supporting Gareth Bale and the boys in the Euros last summer,” she said. “That was great fun.”