Mike Tindall: I hope I am not the last Tindall to play for England – but my daughter supports Australia
Mike Tindall, the former England rugby captain, hopes he will not be the last Tindall to pull on the white jersey of England - but admitted he was struggling to stop one of his daughters from supporting Australia.
The 2003 Rugby World Cup winner said his daughter Lena, five, already plays the game but Mia, 10, was yet to catch the bug.
“They do watch and support and they watched a lot of [last year’s] World Cup,” Tindall said in an interview with Telegraph Sport.
“Mia has a kinship with Australia and so she cheers for Australia as well, which is slightly awkward when Australia are playing England, but they do watch.”
Both Tindall and his wife Zara regularly spend time in Australia at the start of the year, as the couple are the brand ambassadors for the racehorse auction house Magic Millions and its carnival is staged in the Gold Coast across 10 days every January.
The couple also have happy memories Down Under, having first met in the country in 2003 in Sydney while Zara was on a gap year from the University of Exeter where she met the former rugby international at a bar. She had been travelling around Australia and New Zealand at the time, and they went on to get married in 2011 at the Canongate Kirk Church in Edinburgh.
Asked if he wants to see another Tindall play for England, he said: “It would be nice if we did but whether we will or not, I don’t know. I’m not going to force it on them but it would be nice if they did.
“Mia is not in love with it at the moment, so we will have to wait and see. Lena still goes and plays so watch this space is all I can say about it.
“[Son] Lucas, the first thing he ever watched as soon as he was born [in 2021] was Bath versus Wigan back in 1996 as it happened to be on TV - he was 20 minutes old when he watched that. Hopefully he will watch a bit of rugby.”
Tindall said he and his wife Zara, 42, would be more than happy to support their children if they decide to follow them into the sporting world. Tindall was a key part of England’s only Rugby World Cup triumph 21 years ago, while Zara claimed an equestrian silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics and was named 2006 BBC Sports Personality of the Year after being crowned world champion.
“We’ve talked about it and if there is any issues we will both support whatever they want. They can make their own decisions and as a parent you have just got to support them.
“I would love it if they were, it’s been such a big part of all of our lives. So it would be nice if we could keep that going through the kids.”
Tindall added: “I don’t get to go to that many [rugby] games. England games I do. I took all my kids to Gloucester for the first time the other weekend - it’s something I would like to do a bit more - the old adage of the more they see it the more they will do it.
“It’s definitely with live sport you get passionate when you need to go watch it live. It’s something we need to do a bit more with them that I will watch those games live.
“It’s a great thing to share with the kids, isn’t it, live sport; live events? It’s the kind of thing I would like to do with them.”
