A doctor and a Bristol Bear - Prop Simi Pam is a player who is Powered Differently

Simi Pam is a walking example that it is never too late to try something new.

The Bristol Bears prop was almost 23 when she first picked up a rugby ball while in her penultimate year of studying medicine at Bristol University, kickstarting her rapid rise through the ranks all the way to Premiership Women's Rugby with Bristol Bears.

Juggling life as an elite athlete and resident doctor, the 29-year-old’s ‘can do’ attitude is exactly what led her to discovering the sport after walking away from her first love, track and field.

“I had always done sport, but I’d never played rugby, watched rugby, or really had any exposure to it at all,” she said.

“I last competed in shot put in 2016 and I had this really intense feeling of exhaustion. I was overworked and I needed a break after almost ten years in the sport.

“I planned to take a year away to just enjoy being a student and come back reinvigorated and ready to go. I remember drafting a message to my athletics coach saying I was looking forward to getting stuck into training again but I never sent that message because I knew it wasn’t true.”

It was after three weeks and many failed attempts at telling herself balancing her medical studies alongside playing sport would not be possible, that Pam was talked into attending a university training session.

She added: “I tried to just not do sport for a while - everyone had always told me ‘We love how sporty you are but there’s no way you’ll be able to do it to such a high level when you become a doctor’.

“I thought maybe my sporting days were done and it was time to focus on my career, but deep down I knew I couldn’t just be a doctor.

“I rocked up to a university training session and said ‘Hey, I’m Simi, I don’t know anything about rugby and I have no idea how to play - can you teach me?’  The rest, as they say, is history.”

It only took a few weeks of training before Pam was called up to play for the university team against Bath, despite only ever playing the non-contact version of the game and not yet knowing all the rules.

“The team coach told me I would learn more from playing a match, so I went to Sports Direct, bought the cheapest boots I could find and literally had a 10 minute debrief on how you do contact before the game," she explained.

“The first half I was just trying not to make any mistakes, but at half-time the Bath Women’s First Team coach Keith Leaker - who works at Bears now - came over and introduced himself.

“He said ‘Hey Simi, I know you’re new to this sport and you’re doing really well, but I think you can run through these girls’ and I said ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do that, thanks!’

“I got the ball in the second half and I just put my head down and ran. I scored my first try and I remember so distinctly thinking ‘Wow this is a fun sport, this is a big bit of me’. I scored four tries after that.”

While she didn’t yet know it, this try-scoring thrill was the catalyst that would see Pam leapfrog to the university first team, receive an invitation to trial for Bristol Bears and eventually an England call-up.

“Being put in the front row was very daunting,” she said. “I didn’t have a skillset, I couldn’t catch, I had no game knowledge, but I knew I was powerful and fast. I just had to work out how to apply that on the pitch.

“Since then my appreciation for what international rugby is and what it takes to be a part of that set up has really grown.

“I’ve been really working hard to hone my scrum - it’s an art form - and I take a lot of pride in the aspects of the game that aren’t going to make the highlights reel.”

This unsung hero work ethic translates to Pam’s commitment to being a resident doctor at North Bristol NHS Trust Hospital, where she now focuses on service provision to allow her to fully commit to training.

“For two years I completed my training as a junior doctor full-time while trying to play elite rugby," she added. "It was hell and just did not work. It wasn’t conducive to my performance on the pitch or my health."