LONDON (AP) — Here’s the irony: Abby Dow is not a hugger.

“I’m not,” says the England winger whose crocheted art, which she calls little acts of love, have made lifelong friends of opponents at the Women’s Rugby World Cup and earned the admiration of thousands including Kate, the Princess of Wales.

Dow told the podcast The Good, The Scaz & The Rugby this month she’s awkward about hugs and much happier if the other person initiates.

But she’s been getting a ton of hugs in the World Cup thanks to her crochet. Dow makes tiny game jerseys detailed with the number and colors of her same-numbered opposite to present after games as bespoke key chains. The gesture is massively popular.

There was one for U.S. winger Emily Henrich — “It was the whole reason I wanted to start (the game),” Henrich joked — Australia’s Maya Stewart and Scotland’s Rhona Lloyd. For that same Scotland quarterfinal in which Dow bagged a try, a chargedown and a 50:22, she also presented crocheted whistles for the three on-field officials.

She joked to them: “I made one and I was like, there’s three of them (officials) so I’m going to have to (make three). Don’t tell the fourth official though!”

Dow began crocheting in 2020 to fill time while she was dilly-dallying about completing her Masters degree in mechanical engineering, with honors. She taught herself off YouTube. She took crochet into the England team camp and players and staff have taken it up, even some men.

“It’s just nice to be able to make something,” Dow says. “My love language is gift-giving and now I’m getting all these crochet gifts from the crowd, all the fans are giving me their love and I love it, it’s very cute. You can make all sorts of things with your imagination.”

Abby Wow

Her scrunchies and hats evolved into gifts of roses for teammates’ milestones.

“Normally we get given a real rose for our (milestones),” she says, “but if you’re away (from home), sometimes its hard to preserve that rose so, fortunately, with a crochet rose you don’t have to worry about that because it should last and not need water.”

For first caps, Dow presents a red rose with leaves, for the 50th a silver rose, and the 100th a gold one.

“It’s really brought out a different side to her that we didn’t really know much about before,” teammate Rosie Galligan says.

When Dow’s fellow winger Jess Breach got the silver rose after the win against Australia, she asked Dow, “Can I hug you?”

Teammates repaid Dow after her 50th test in April with a crocheted bouquet of white roses centered by a silver one.

She has a website so others can copy her designs. The roses are a chain of petals that she wraps up. They usually take an hour. She spent eight hours on the bouquet for the Princess of Wales, who wasn’t spared Dow’s no-initiated-hug policy. “I shot that hand out straight away,” she told The Good, The Scaz & The Rugby. “I was like, ‘I do not want to snap you in a hug.’”

On the field, though, Dow has no problem smashing through you or fending off your face.

One of the great England careers began at 20 with a try from her first touch in 2017 against Canada. She has 50 tries in 58 tests, lost only twice, and is heading toward her second straight World Cup final at Twickenham this Saturday. She turns 28 two days later.

She says her nickname, “Abby Wow,” was coined by England teammate Natasha Hunt during a TV commentary.

Dow broke her leg in 2022. The medical advice was a nine-month layup. Less than six months later, she was on the bench for England’s World Cup opener against Fiji in Auckland. She scored the try voted the world’s best that year in the semifinal win over Canada; England ran from behind its try-line, Claudia Moloney-MacDonald jinked out of the 22 and threw Dow a 20-meter running pass to zoom away.

World Rugby has named an annual best XV since 2021 and Dow has been the only woman to appear in all four teams; on both wings and at fullback.

“Winger is the more natural try-scorer (position) so whenever I play 15 I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I miss wing,’” she told England Rugby. “It just feels so much more natural to me. It’s just that greed to want to score … in the nicest way possible to myself.”

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