SHARON Harrogate's call-up to the North West representative team carried a double bonus - the captaincy and a victory!

The tight-head prop forward only discovered she had been elected skip-per on the day of the match but led her side to a 27-12 win against the North East in their first match of the season.

The 38-year-old thoroughly enjoyed the added responsibility of her role.

'It was brilliant,' she admitted. 'After doing the session for the selection, the coaches had got together to discuss the captaincy and said because of my knowledge and skill they were offering it to me. The first thing I did was ring my husband!'

Sharon didn't get on the scoresheet herself but helped to galvanise a decisive second-half effort from her team-mates after an even start.

'Being in the forwards you tend to do the ground work and let the faster ones do the scoring!,' she said.

'It was pretty even at first because we had not trained together and it was our first match.

'But we started to gel in the second half and once we began to get it together, we tended to outplay them. But in the first half, it was anybody's game.'

Sharon, who works in the grocery department at Asda in Runcorn, is in her second season at Northwich RUFC - having returned to the game, after trimming down from dress size 24 to a 16.

She was selected for the 22-strong NW squad from more than 60 contenders and with this August seeing the Women's World Cup in Canada, Sharon hopes to continue her rapid climb of the ladder.

'I have gone from club rugby to county and now the region in little more than 12 months,' said Sharon. 'The next step is England.'

She even has her own special fan club - her children Daniel, five, and three-year-old Kimberley - to cheer her along the way.