Why rugby-code hopper Goldthorp has the world at her feet

Fran Goldthorpe is a rugby code hopper, attempting to piece together an endless season with a globe-trotting career like no other

The Yorkshire-born full-back’s list of achievements to date is already a pick and mix of impressive feats, having won two Super League titles with Leeds Rhinos, played in a home rugby league World Cup for England and spent two years in Australia’s top-flight with the North Queensland Cowboys before returning to rugby union with Loughborough Lightning – a club where she previously spent two seasons.

And all that by the age of 21.

“Sometime I forget to sit down and go, ‘oh I’ve actually achieve all that’, because I just keep looking for the next opportunity I can take,” Goldthorp told BBC Sport.

It has been her attitude since she first started playing sport.

It began as a youngster, splitting her year between rugby union in the winter before making the summer move to cricket – another sport where she earned representative honours playing for Yorkshire.

Rugby league was not a sport Goldthorp adopted until she was 16 – but she was quick to thrive in the 13-player game.

She scored 45 tries in 44 appearances for Leeds, was shortlisted for the Woman of Steel honour as Super League’s best player in 2021 and dazzled 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 called up to 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 flare 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 that reason, Goldthorp decided to return to rugby union and her former club Loughborough just weeks after finishing her latest campaign with the North Queensland Cowboys in the NRLW.

There were just 22 days between her season-ending appearance for the Cowboys and her first game back for Loughborough in October.

Sitting on the side of Lightning’s training pitch at Loughborough University, the falling autumn leaves were a fitting illustration of the stark change in setting from the coastal city of Townsville – a major 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 suffered in 2023, at the end of her rookie NRLW season, forced Goldthorp to take a break for the first time in her young career.

It also convinced her to try to make a year-round career as a rugby-code jumper, spending the rugby league season down under before coming back 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 slotted into a Loughborough side packed with pedigree that includes four England internationals – Emily Scarratt, Lilli Ives Campion, Helena Rowland and Bo Westcombe-Evans – who were involved in their triumphant WXV campaign in September.

With England hosting next year’s rugby union World Cup, her latest code change created immediate intrigue.

She only added to it 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.

Goldthrop says 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 says going on to do something similar in the 15-player game would feel the same.

But she insists “it is no driving force” behind why she returned 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 taking place in the southern hemisphere in 2026, Goldthorp has plenty to play for across both codes on both sides of the globe.