Tamara Taylor: 'I don't see myself going near too many crevasses on Everest'

At first glance it reads like a classic Boys’ Own adventure yarn. This month a group of 27 people representing the Wooden Spoon charity will embark on a mission to establish a world record by playing rugby almost 6,500m up Mount Everest. The aim is to raise a minimum of £200,000 to fund projects supporting disadvantaged children and young people with disabilities across the UK and Ireland.

Among those currently training hard for the LMAX Everest Rugby Challenge are the former internationals Shane Williams, Lee Mears and Ollie Phillips but it is the 115-times capped England women’s forward Tamara Taylor who is confronting the toughest task of all. Ain’t no mountain high enough? Not in the case of the 37-year-old Taylor, a key member of England’s World Cup-winning squad in 2014, who has signed up for the enterprise despite, on her own admission, being scared of heights.

No wonder, in the circumstances, she sounds more than a little apprehensive. “It’s probably best I don’t think about it and just get there and do it rather than worry about how I’m going to feel,” says Taylor, a second-row for Darlington Mowden Park Sharks. “If I go to the edge of a high building, I get a tingly feeling in my hands and feet. My mum is terrible. She can’t even go near a glass window anywhere above the third floor.”

So far Taylor Jr has coped by focusing on the walking bit rather than the steepness of the gradient. “I know that sounds stupid because it’s the highest mountain in the world but I don’t see myself walking on the edge of too many crevasses. That would make me terrified. In my head I’m just walking up a mountain.”

Along the way, too, she is determined to show that female rugby players are at least as iron-willed as their male counterparts. “I’m scared of heights but it’s more a case of not wanting to fail. I don’t want to be the person that doesn’t make it because they get sick.” Hence the altitude tent in her spare bedroom, courtesy of Gateshead college where much of her training has been done. “I sleep in there most nights. I’m just hoping all this lack of sleep has been worth it because it’s really not very easy to sleep in. You can fit in a king-size mattress but it’s just a see-through tent that zips up all the way round. You pass a tube in and it reduces the amount of oxygen.”

By the time the expedition sets off for Tibet a week on Saturday, with the goal of playing a full contact game of sevens, as well as touch rugby, at almost 21,000 feet above sea level on a full-sized pitch with posts and flags, she is also quietly optimistic of being better prepared than her male counterparts. “I think some of the guys think it’s going to be really competitive and are already thinking about tactics. No. The tactics are just going to be breathing and moving. That’s probably the organisers’ biggest concern: ‘Are they going to get too competitive?’”

Personally, having finally recovered from ankle ligament reconstruction surgery last year that left her “pretty depressed and down”, she is more focused on flying the flag for can-do women nationwide. “We did some altitude training a couple of months ago on watt bikes and treadmills and all I could think of was: ‘Don’t let the girls down, don’t come last, stay in the game.’ I didn’t come last in all of it, so it was fine.”

This same defiant streak has already led her to challenge convention by becoming one of the first female athletes in the world to have a testimonial season, the preserve of men for many decades. “It all came about from a random conversation with a couple of guys from the Rugby Players’ Association. I just said: ‘What’s the crack with these testimonials?’ There have been so many players who have gone before me and haven’t had any celebration of their career. Absolutely nothing. So I thought: ‘Why don’t women do it?’ My biggest hope is that it starts the ball rolling and people think: ‘Oh, that’s a thing female athletes can do as well.’ Because, really, why shouldn’t they?”

There is certainly an argument that the traditional reason for testimonials – raising a few quid for lowly paid, long-serving players – applies to England’s leading women rugby players more than anyone. Either way Taylor’s family long ago came to terms with her perpetual desire to escape her comfort zone. “They all think I’m a little bit crazy. When I started playing rugby back aged 15 that wasn’t considered normal for a girl. Fair play to my family. They’ve embraced the fact I’m happy to be a little bit different.”

Given she could not even drive last summer because an ankle was in a medical boot, the next few weeks will certainly be that. “In hindsight, looking back over the last 9-10 months, it’s been really important for me mentally to have something else. I was feeling a bit lost. When someone says you’ve got an opportunity to go somewhere like Everest you can’t turn that down, however scary it is.”

Offload heaven

World Rugby has been busy identifying potential law tweaks to enhance the game both for players and spectators. Last weekend’s European quarter-final ties would suggest there is not a massive amount wrong with the existing law-book when, crucially, key parts of it are refereed properly and players are encouraged to practice their offloading skills more often. If a few more top teams sought to replicate the positive collective attitude of, in particular, Toulouse, La Rochelle and Clermont Auvergne, selling the game to a new audience would be instantly simpler.

One to watch

Leicester v Exeter. Five games to go and nervy Tiger feet are starting to twitch. In 10th position, just five points off the bottom, they cannot simply rely on other teams doing them a favour, while the financial implications of relegation for one of England’s supposed leading clubs scarcely need spelling out. All of which makes the visit of Exeter Chiefs, nine points clear at the top of the table, and next week’s trip to Newcastle as vital a pair of back-to-back fixtures as any in Leicester’s modern history.