Fran Goldthorp’s Diverse Rugby Career at 21

Fran Goldthorp was named North Queensland Cowboys rookie of the year in their inaugural NRLW season. Fran Goldthorp is a rugby code-switcher, endeavoring to manage a continuous season with an unparalleled global career. The Yorkshire-born full-back’s current list of accomplishments is already a varied collection of impressive feats, including two Super League titles with Leeds Rhinos, playing in a home rugby league World Cup for England, and spending two years in Australia’s top-tier competition with the North Queensland Cowboys. She has now returned to rugby union with Loughborough Lightning, a club where she previously spent two seasons. All these achievements have occurred by the age of 21. “Sometime I forget to sit down and go, ‘Oh, I’ve actually achieved all that’, because I just keep looking for the next opportunity I can take,” Goldthorp told BBC Sport. This attitude has been consistent since she first began playing sport. It started in her youth, dividing her year between rugby union in the winter and cricket in the summer, another sport where she earned representative honors playing for Yorkshire. Rugby league was not a sport Goldthorp took up until she was 16, but she quickly excelled in the 13-player game. She scored 45 tries in 44 appearances for Leeds, was shortlisted for the Woman of Steel honor as Super League’s best player in 2021, and performed brilliantly in the World Cup a year later while still a teenager. Even then, she was still playing rugby union half the time. Goldthorp spent two seasons with Loughborough Lightning in the women’s top flight between March 2021 and March 2023, and became a dual-code international when selected for the England Under-20 side. “I’ve always bounced from one sport to the other, which I love, because I’m a very hyperactive person – I just like to be doing things,” she said. “Also, I feel like it just develops your skillset and there is crossover. It can be hard to transition sometimes, but it allows me to bring a bit more flair into this game.” “It can be quite structured and sometimes I struggle with that structure, but it allows me to play a bit more free and that can sometimes help the other girls.” For this reason, Goldthorp decided to return to rugby union and her former club Loughborough just weeks after concluding her latest campaign with the North Queensland Cowboys in the NRLW. Only 22 days passed between her season-ending appearance for the Cowboys and her first game back for Loughborough in October. Sitting by Lightning’s training pitch at Loughborough University, the falling autumn leaves served as a fitting contrast to the coastal city of Townsville, a primary gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, where the Cowboys are based. “At least it’s sunny,” Goldthorp joked. “It’s massively different, but I think I really enjoy having six months there and having the time here.” “I’m really close to my family so coming back and being around them fills that cup back up.” An elbow injury sustained in 2023, at the end of her rookie NRLW season, compelled Goldthorp to take a break for the first time in her young career. It also persuaded her to attempt a year-round career as a rugby-code jumper, spending the rugby league season in Australia before returning to play in the Premiership. “Last year I chose not to play in the off-season and I struggled a bit not being in a team environment,” Goldthorp said. “Training by yourself, you don’t get the match fitness and skillset, so it was easier for me to be in a team.” “I will probably still go back out to Australia at some point. But I’m just enjoying being around a team environment and it’s a very competitive environment here at Loughborough. That suits me as a person really well.” Goldthorp has integrated into a Loughborough team rich in talent, including four England internationals—Emily Scarratt, Lilli Ives Campion, Helena Rowland, and Bo Westcombe-Evans—who participated in the successful WXV campaign in October. Fran Goldthorp is currently in her second period with Loughborough Lightning. With England hosting next year’s rugby union World Cup, her most recent code change generated immediate interest. She further fueled this interest by scoring a try in her first game back for Loughborough, with England attack coach Lou Meadows telling the Rugbypass website, external that she would be on the Red Roses selection radar. Goldthorp states that playing in the rugby league World Cup in 2022, where England reached the semi-final, was the “biggest thing” she has done in her career so far, and believes achieving something similar in the 15-player game would feel the same. However, she insists “it is no driving force” behind her return to rugby union. “You always chase those moments, they are the games that you want to play in, they are the experiences that you will probably look back on in your career,” she said. “If that happens, it happens. I’ve been brought up as a very grounded person and if those opportunities come about, then you take it and relish the experience.” “I just want to try and be the best athlete I can be. I don’t think I have reached my potential yet. I still have lot of learning and growing to do.” “I just want to play consistent rugby at a high level and see where that takes me.” With rugby league’s next World Cup scheduled for the southern hemisphere in 2026, Goldthorp has ample opportunities across both codes on both sides of the globe.