How Richmond handed Kapo a ‘lifeline’ during sarcoma battle
Club stalwart credits the staff and team-mates for pulling her through low times, says Fiona Tomas
If there is one thing that Laura Kapo vividly remembers from Richmond’s title-winning year three years ago, it is the hilarity of warming up in the dark before the Women’s Premiership final. It was against Saracens on a cold January evening at Twickenham Stoop, pre-tyrells Premier 15s era. The game kicked off at 5.30pm and, with Harlequins men’s side having only just finished their league fixture, both women’s teams were duly banished to the back pitches of Richmond College to conduct their warm-ups, a whole five miles from the stadium.
“There were no floodlights, so we did a toss of the coin,” Kapo laughs. “Richmond got the part of pitch which was nearest to the changing rooms, which meant we had the light from them.
“Saracens got the far end of the pitch, which meant they were using the players’ and coaches’ car headlights to light up the ground and whatever street lights were down the A316. It’s such a different set-up now, but the women’s game has had to go through those hurdles to get to where it is today.”
At half-time, both teams were upgraded to the steamy changing rooms at the Stoop, still perfumed with the smell of male deodorant and freshly showered bodies and where sweaty tape and mud clots carpeted the floor. After months of meticulous planning and organising the squad in her new dual capacity as Richmond’s chairwoman and versatile forward, Kapo entered the fray in the second half and helped Richmond to a 28-17 victory. That she did so having been diagnosed with sarcoma – a rare form of soft tissue cancer – in her leg only four months before, was staggering.
“We lost 16 of that Premiershipwinning squad,” Kapo recalls. “They all left and went to Aylesford Bulls and we had another four who retired. There were about five of us left, so the second team were drafted up into the first team, the thirds were drafted up into the second. We ended up withdrawing our third team from the league.”
Aylesford Bulls would play a pivotal role in the formation of Harlequins Women, arguably the most forward-thinking team in the Tyrells Premier 15s and who will be hoping to deny Saracens a third consecutive title this season.
But Kapo stayed and threw all her energy into saving the club she joined as a 17-year-old, only because she needed an extra sport for her PE A-level and muchneeded driving practice from her home in Walton-on-thames.
She stubbornly continued playing, despite undergoing regular chemotherapy sessions which she treated no differently to dentist appointments. England international Rowena Burnfield was one of the back-rowers who would heartily tell her to “get your s--- together” when they were up against it on the pitch (“She’d buy me a pint in the clubhouse afterwards,” Kapo says).
But after unexpectedly relapsing last summer, Kapo agreed with the club’s medical board to temporarily hang up her boots after suffering exercise-induced epileptic fits in training.
“Rugby is a massive and really important part of my life,” Kapo says. “It’s been a great stressrelease and a huge distraction. It’s a bit of a lifeline at times and the people at Richmond have been a huge part of that.
“The bar staff, the catering guys, they all look after me. Whether that’s someone saying, ‘Oh, you look like you need a cider’ – and one will appear in front of me. Or the catering guys will bring me a jam sandwich when I look like I’m about to pass out.”
Such is the level of respect and popularity that Kapo commands at one of England’s oldest and most decorated women’s clubs that she was awarded the Women’s Player of the Year at the National Rugby Awards at Twickenham last month.
Mike Panaho, Richmond’s director of rugby, quips that if you were to cut her in half, “she’d bleed gold, red and black” – a colourful analogy for the 34-year-old’s 287 appearances over 17 years in which she has filled numerous volunteering and ambassador roles.
Kapo will watch her beloved side at the familiarity of the Stoop today, when Richmond face west London neighbours Quins on the opening day of the Tyrrells.
This third edition of the league will see players at Saracens and Worcester paid for the first time at club level, concrete signs that elite women’s rugby is now formally navigating the obstacles of professionalism. But these financial benefits quickly become trivial when framed against the enriching personal journey Kapo has been on at Richmond.
“At different points I did get low, but that’s where team-mates are priceless,” she says. “You can’t put a value on them, they’ll always dig you out of stuff.”