Working Through Corona with Sam Jordan

The Castleford forward has been with the team since Day One however, her rugby ambitions have been forced to take a back seat as she continues to work as a care worker throughout the ongoing pandemic.

“I’ve normally got two jobs,” said Jordan. “I work for Meadow Lodge Home Care Services where I go out and help to enable the elderly to stay at home. My other job, I work at Pontefract College so obviously I’m not at work there at the moment.

“When college shut - when we first went into lockdown - my job in care became full-time for two weeks. I rung up saying 'I’m not working, I can give you two weeks of my time, can you give me work' and they said yeah, we need you, so I went to work in a different area just to pick up where people were self-isolating.”

While working as a care worker, Jordan uses personal protective equipment (PPE) not only to protect herself but also the people she works with.

She said: “Working in care we use PPE anyway. But because the elderly are vulnerable we also have to wear face masks as well as fluid shields.”

Despite working in an industry which has been greatly affected by the pandemic, Jordan still finds time to follow training programmes. Nevertheless, training by herself has not been easy for the forward.

She said: “I hated being on my own. Trying to find motivation to train on your own is not easy. For the past two weeks I’ve actually got my younger cousin involved. He played rugby himself and he’s frustrated that he’s not training. It’s been a lot more enjoyable having someone else to do it with.”

The RFL have recently released further guidance on small group training sessions which could pave the way for a return to some kind of normality for the players.

“I can’t wait for training to resume,” said Jordan. “You play rugby because it’s a team sport and you want to be with others. If you didn’t want to be in a team, you’d go and do athletics or something like that; a sport where you’re on your own.”

There are no concrete details as of yet regarding the 2020 campaign however, we will update fans via our social media channels when there is more information available.

Castleford Tigers Women would like to give a big shoutout to all the main shirt sponsors: Hillside Childcare, GMB Union, Tracked Spider Solutions, Yorkshire Flight Simulator, Anthony Higgins Transport, Castle Commercial Cleaning Limited, B&J Goulding, Marra Falcons, Pizza Prima, SB Paving, D&M Family Butchers and the Wakefield Council.