Top 10 players: Gill Burns
Who are the best women's players to have ever played the game? We pick our Top 10 since the test game began in 1982 and today we pick out England legend Gill Burns.
Published by Alison Donnelly, October 28th, 2015
3 minute read
Gill BurnsMajor teams:WaterlooPosition:Number 8Country:EnglandTest span:1989-2002
After England won the World Cup in Paris 2014, there was a lovely snapshot a few hours after the final whistle when the victors mingled with supporters at a pub around the corner from the Stade Jean Bouin.Gill Burns – a vital part of the last England team to a World Cup win 20 years earlier – was right in the thick of the celebrations with her guitar and voice carrying the English joy, surrounded by ecstatic players with gold medals around their necks.Burns is synonymous with the progress of English women’s rugby having represented England over 70 times during a stellar international career and having played in the 38-23 victory over USA in the Women’s World Cup final in 1994 – the first time England won the tournament. Burns played in four World Cups in all and was made an MBE in 2005.
It was no real surprise that she would reach the top in sport, having represented British Colleges at hockey, basketball, swimming and athletics and holding diplomas in tap, ballet and modern dance.
She had hardly taken up the game when she was selected for England making her international debut against Sweden at Waterloo, a game in which she not only played, but also organised to help promote women’s rugby in the north.She was long-standing captain of the national side, after succeeding Karen Almond and in a remarkable career, she also represented Great Britain against France, played for Waterloo (who she represented over 250 times) from 1989 until recently and is a former President of the then Rugby Football Union for Women
Stephen Jones writing in The Sunday Times in 1996 said it best when he said about Burns.“It is not so much that she is a fine player and athlete, such a selfless ambassador for women's rugby, or, indeed, some kind of valiant amateur throwback to rugby as it once was. It is that Burns came across, in every respect, as a genuine, 24-carat English sporting heroine.”Another World Rugby Hall of Famer, almost 20 years later those words still ring true.
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