The England player turned World Cup referee

Four years ago, Tara Jones played in a Rugby League World Cup semi-final for England. This Saturday, she will be refereeing one. Four years ago, Tara Jones played for England in a Rugby League World Cup semi-final. This Saturday, she will be refereeing one, when New Zealand's women – her opponents in 2022 – face Samoa in Newcastle, New South Wales. It means that the former St Helens hooker has gone one stage further at the tournament than either England's men or women managed this time around. She has come a long way since starting out as a referee, where the tests of character came from the very beginning – in one of her earliest games, when she was aged just 12, she had to send off a misbehaving parent on the sideline.

For years, she combined officiating with a successful playing career at Saints, with whom she won a Women's Super League title, two League Leaders' Shields and four Challenge Cups – becoming the first woman to score a try in a Challenge Cup final at Wembley, in 2023, a year before her retirement. Still only 30, Jones has been made an MBE for her services to a sport in which she made history in March by becoming the first woman to referee a men's Super League fixture. As