Meg Jones and Tatyana Heard - England's centre partnership - were at Hartpury together as teenagers
Women's Rugby World Cup semi-final: France v England
Venue: Ashton Gate, Bristol Date: Saturday, 20 September Kick-off: 15:30 BST
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For Megan Jones, there is a corner of this England team that is forever Block 16.
"We lived in different blocks, but we always congregated there, before, after and between training sessions, on weekends. That is where the special moments really began," the England centre tells BBC Sport.
"A lot of the same stories we tell came from there, the same jokes resonate from then.
Those times were more than a decade ago. Jones, now 28, was a teenager.
But many of the same players are alongside her still, all the way from Block 16 to a Rugby World Cup last four.
Block 16 is part of the student accommodation at Hartpury College and University.
And its women's rugby academy is a talent factory, taking in 16-year-olds from all round the country and tuning out Red Roses with stunning regularity.
A kind of Hogwarts, the school attended by Harry Potter, with deep heat.
Sarah Bern, Holly Aitchison, Zoe Aldcroft, Tatyana Heard and Zoe Harrison were among Jones' contempories.
Ellie Kildunne, Hannah Botterman, Alex Matthews, Amy Cokayne, Abi Burton, Jade Shekells, Emma Sing and May Campbell also went through the programme.
Aldcroft, England's captain, has seen many different players come into the Red Roses camp and explain their route to the team.
"So many girls stand in the room and say 'I am from Hartpury'," she says.
"Those two years have added so much to them. You are 16, alongside your mates but also in a professional rugby environment, while also doing your studies.
"There is nowhere else where you get to do that. It is a special place."
Waterman scored 47 tries and won 82 caps after making her first England appearance in 2003 at the age of 18
The programme started in 2009, and appointed England full-back Danielle Waterman to run it the following year.
"I remember losing to New Zealand in the 2010 Rugby World Cup final at the Stoop," says Waterman.
"I was absolutely devastated and I walked over to where my family were sat to get a hug from my parents.
"And one of the first fans that worked their way to the front of the queue to see the players was a young girl called Siobhan Longdon-Hughes.
"She shouted 'Nolli, Nolli!' I looked over and she said, 'You're going to be my coach, I'll see you next week.'
"If there's anything that brought you back down to earth as a women's rugby player back then, it's being reminded about your new job when you've just finished a World Cup final!"
One of Waterman's most important tasks was making sure each year's intake of approximately 10 students from 50-60 trialists were the right people, as well as the best players.
"There was always all sorts of things that I would look at when making those calls," Waterman remembers.
"I would make the time to try and speak to parents and see the relationship they had with the girls.
"I would turn down very talented players if I didn't think the program was quite right for them or they weren't quite ready for it."
A family holiday meant Bern, now a rampaging prop for England, initially couldn't make a trial.
"I remember speaking to her dad saying I could speak to Maggie Alphonsi [Waterman's former England team-mate] because she's coached Sarah at regional level in the South East.
"I said 'No, for me, I have to meet every player - this is a special program. So even with someone as talented as that, I thought it was important."
Waterman was just as exacting once term had begun.
Her course would encompass not just the rugby side, but nutrition, gym, video analysis, media management and psychology, all alongside academic work.
"It is so beneficial to our journeys, but at the time you don't realise it, you are just having a kickabout with your mates," says England centre Tatyana Heard.
"To have that connection before you have even got on the pitch is massive, then when you add the value, drive and determination that become innate in us.
"Danielle Waterman taught us so much about how to be a professional and how to work hard and how, as she said, 'when you are tired, you are not tired'.
"It shaped us so much, as rugby players, but also as individuals."
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