Courtney Winfield-Hill: From Rugby League Star to England Cricket Coach | England Women’s Cricket Team

AAsk former rugby league international Courtney Winfield-Hill about her playing days and she’ll tell you – half-jokingly – that she’s not retired, she’s simply taking a gap year. It’s just that that gap has so far lasted two years (she hasn’t stepped on a rugby field since the end of the 2022 World Cup) and has included a dizzying array of coaching gigs and a return to her original sport: cricket.

Her latest assignment is as assistant coach on England women’s tour of Ireland, which begins on Saturday with the first of three one-day internationals in Belfast, followed by two T20s in Dublin. The games are full international matches, but a clash with the World Cup build-up in the United Arab Emirates means England are effectively sending an A-team.

A maximum of seven players could make their international debut, including 30-year-old Georgia Adams, who is likely to have given up hope of an England call-up, and 19-year-old batswoman Seren Smale, who gets her first chance to represent her country at senior level much earlier than expected.

“We may have to make some room in the schedule for the cap presentations,” Winfield-Hill says. “But what’s exciting is that the stories behind each of those caps are going to be so different. It’s a unique opportunity.”

If the switch from rugby league to cricket coaching seems like an unusual career path, take it for granted for the 37-year-old: how many other women born and raised in rural Queensland have represented England in rugby league? And how many have done so after a two-decade absence from the sport, playing Aussie state and Big Bash cricket? The explanation comes down to that purest of human experiences: love.

Courtney’s sliding doors moment was meeting England cricketer Lauren Winfield when they were teammates for Brisbane Heat in the Women’s Big Bash League. After two years of long-distance, the couple settled in England and are now married. It was a chance glance at an Instagram post from Leeds Rhinos looking for players that led her back to rugby league; she subsequently qualified for England via a residency. Meanwhile, the move also led to a career rethink, away from teaching and into coaching.

So is it all Lauren’s fault? “It always is,” says Courtney. “If I had stayed in Australia, I might not have taken that leap. But since I’ve changed half a planet and turned my whole life upside down, I just thought, ‘Why not turn my career upside down too?'”

So far, the flip has paid off. There was a first outing with Lauren’s team, the Headingley-based Northern Diamonds – yes, she coached her wife; yes, it involved a few rows; yes, Courtney threw in some old-fashioned Aussie sledging.

Since hanging up her rugby boots, she has held assistant coaching stints with the Heat in the WBBL, Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Women’s Premier League, Trent Rockets in the Hundred and England A and Under-19 teams. “I’m loving the change of groups,” she says.

She is known for her unconventional methods: at the Diamonds she introduced the concept of Fun Fridays and had England A wicketkeeper Bess Heath trained as a left-handed batter to get her used to switch-hitting. “I definitely think outside the box,” she says. “Sometimes things get too serious – I’d like to think that you can still take things seriously without taking away the game, the adventure and the experimentation.”

The other unusual thing about Winfield-Hill is that she is an openly gay woman. England cricket coaching remains a heavily male, heteronormative space: six of the eight regional women’s teams are coached by men, and there are more men named Jon Lewis involved in the England women’s coaching set-up than women.

Winfield-Hill praises Yorkshire’s coach development manager Kevin Gresham for putting her on the England and Wales Cricket Board’s first 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 consciously aware of, but you just hope that wherever you go, you can leave positive footprints, and if people want to follow those footprints, or forge their own path, then that’s great.”

It’s unclear what the future holds for Winfield-Hill. She hasn’t left rugby behind entirely – in May she joined the Rugby Football League as a senior women’s and girls’ affiliate – and in October she’ll be heading to Australia for a new WBBL coaching stint.

She is non-committal about whether she will ever take on a senior international coaching role: “I’m not a goal setter. Random things will come my way that excite me, and I’ll be excited to step into those spaces.”

One thing is clear: English cricket would do well to hold on to its talent while the ‘gap year’ lasts.