Wood teaming up with mentor Waterman
Tears will flow when the coach and her star pupil line up for the Barbarians, reports Kate Rowan
One can almost feel like an intruder as Millie Wood and Danielle Waterman’s eyes fill with tears as they reminisce on how what started as a player-coach relationship became a lifechanging friendship.
As Wood tells how she lost her mother Heidi to cancer six years ago when she was a 17-year-old student at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire, where she was coached by Waterman, the older player becomes even more emotional.
Waterman, 34, who is known as “Nolli”, will play with her protege for the first time, for Barbarians Women as they face England at Twickenham tomorrow. Waterman will start at full-back, where she was one of the most talented players of her generation, while Wood plays at outside centre.
The ordeal of experiencing grief so young has made Wood mature beyond her years. She says Waterman became a mother figure: “First it was a coach-player relationship but when they see you every day, it becomes much more personal, going through what I went through with my family, Nolli stepped in as somebody who was a friend, almost a parent.”
Waterman was keen to “support and protect” Wood as she had seen her own mother Sue battle breast cancer, but admits that at times she felt guilty that she still had her own mother.
Wood recalls that she was in an upbeat mood starting at Hartpury in August 2012, as Heidi was in remission from breast cancer but began to experience back pain. “Come October half-term mum was re-diagnosed with cancer of the liver and by the end of the half-term she had passed away. We were told she had three months and she died within the week.”
Waterman says she made sure that Heidi would get to watch her daughter play one last time. “We had a game just before half-term and Heidi couldn’t come and Millie did the most amazing intercept and scored the most incredible try. The great thing is that we had it filmed, so your mum watched it.”
Wood’s pragmatic approach to grief and her sporting prowess were both inherited from Heidi, who was part of the same England Commonwealth Games swimming relay team as Sharron Davies in 1978, winning a silver medal.
Wood plays for Gloucesterhartpury in the Premier15s, while balancing work as a painter and decorator, having been let go by the England sevens programme.
Her other passion is helping to run a charity, Heidi’s Heroes, with her father Paul, in her mother’s memory. As well as offering fitness classes to cancer patients and grief counselling, swimming lessons are provided to primary school pupils. “It is so important to do that work because it keeps the memory of my mum alive while doing work she would have loved.”
Wood and Waterman both become emotional at the thought of lining up at Twickenham tomorrow. “I think there will be tears but I know just how proud mum would be,” Wood says.