Mike Tindall has shared fresh details of his fateful meeting with wife Zara Phillips - explaining that their love story started essentially by accident. The 46-year-old rugby star has been married to the 44-year-old royal since 2011 and they are proud parents to daughters Mia, 11, and Lena, seven, and four-year-old son Lucas. The pair first met in 2003 and it was a chance encounter akin to the plot of the Gwyneth Paltrow movie Sliding Doors. Mike - who played for Bath and Gloucester, and won 75 caps for England between 2000 and 2011 - met the daughter of Princess Anne while he was taking part in the 2003 Rugby World Cup in Australia . The outside centre had a mixed experience during the sporting event. While England did win the tournament that year, he had been dropped by the team before the final. However, his bad luck turned to good fortune as this then led to him meeting Zara during a night out away from the sporting life. Opening up to Australian golfer, Wayne 'Radar' Riley, Mike revealed exactly why he has such good memories of his time Down Under. He said: "I met Zara there, we won the World Cup there... During the World Cup. It's always the sliding doors moment in the fact that I got dropped for the semi-final and I met her that night." The sport star revealed he had gone out for a beer to lift his spirits after being ditched from the team lineup. It's not the first time he has opened up about his first meeting with Zara. In 2022, while taking part in ITV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! he revealed: "First actual date, just went out for lunch locally. And then ended up being quite a boozy one. Then we figured out that we both like getting smashed. It was a good start." They made their romance public in 2004, and became engaged six years later. Speaking to Daily Mail previously about the moment he popped the question, Mike revealed: "I was upstairs, plucking up the nerve to do it, while Zara was downstairs watching television. It was all about shock value – I wanted to catch her when it was quiet, and she wasn't expecting anything." Zara has previously peeled back details of their early romantic life. She confessed to The Mirror that she initially found her future husband "boring". She said: "It is a long story. I was out with some mates. We went out to watch the Rugby World Cup. It was when we were young enough to run away from life." She added: "I went out for an all day lunch with some girlfriends. We went around the harbour and they were all very drunk and were like ‘England are staying in that hotel'." The continued: "I walked past the restaurant and I saw Austin Healey. The girls went to Austin and dropped my name and told him where they were going to be. He came out for a drink with us and he brought Mike and Martin Corrigan. She claimed: "Mikey, I thought was a bit boring actually. When Austin left and I was told ‘He wants to call you after the final’. I was like ‘that is a bit keen. They have not even got through the semis yet.’ Anyway, he messaged me the whole time like ‘Come for a drink, come for a drink’. I was actually hanging out with some of the All Blacks. "At 8am I walked into this bar and all the England guys were in there and Mike was walking out with this girl and he was like ‘come for a drink’. I was like ‘I have got to go home.’ To this day he said that he only went and raided her fridge!" Zara has also opened up about her relationship with the three children she shares with her children and explained how she and her husband try to instill values. She told Bella magazine: "It’s a bit of a wake-up call sometimes.. You hopefully instil in them the values that you hold. From both of us, what we’ve learned from our careers our hard work, dedication, motivation, lessons, and respect." She added: “It’s so easy to be distracted from that kind of thing. So we try and work every day to make sure they get the same values we had.” Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads