By Jon Page
Emily Scarratt, midfield stalwart for both club and country, goes into the details of a long preseason with England, her recovery from last year’s neck injury, and her thoughts on Olympic superstar Ilona Maher.
Over the summer the Paris Olympic Rugby 7s were incredibly popular, even in the England camp, as the players enjoyed their downtime in a tough summer preseason. Scarratt’s England teammates Ellie Kildunne and Meg Jones even took part in the Olympics for Team GB before joining the Red Roses squad in August. Although Jones will take no part in the upcoming series, Kildunne is still set to add to her 43 England appearances.
“I watched as much Olympics as I could; I became a sofa expert like everybody did on all the random things, I loved it. I watched pretty much as much as I could, of the men’s and the women’s sevens, just phenomenal athletes.”
Despite the rugby sevens Olympic gold medals going to the French men’s side and the New Zealand women’s side, much of the attention went to the United States’ blockbusting ball carrier Ilona Maher. Her rugby skillset and social media platform based upon both entertaining content and body positivity, has catapulted her to unprecedented levels of fame, as the most followed rugby player on social media.
“The profile that she’s been able to gain, and therefore represent our sport so well, I think is amazing. I guess especially as well in a country like America, where rugby is still trying to break through and compete with all these massive sports they have over there. Somebody told me the other day that she has more followers than Stormzy (UK rapper), which is kind of crazy!
“Like again, I don’t necessarily understand it all, but I think it’s an unbelievable platform for our game to be on. Hopefully, anybody who follows her is like, ‘oh what does she do? She plays rugby’, and maybe it just gets a few more eyes on us in any way shape or form, which is obviously a great thing.”
After a 13-month layoff with a neck injury that threatened her rugby career, Scarratt finally returned to PWR action for her club Loughborough Lightning this February. This led to her recall for the Six Nations, where she represented the Red Roses for the first time since the World Cup Final against the Black Ferns in 2022.
England fans will be happy to hear that she is feeling strong. “Pretty good, like obviously you always have an element of niggles and pre-season is tough. You cover a lot of meters on the ground and you’re getting back into the contact work, but yeah, feeling all right.”
Following an ankle injury to outside centre Meg Jones, upon a return from her third Olympic games representing Team GB in 7s, Scarratt was coy about England’s midfield plans, voicing preference for her position “traditionally, I prefer 13”, but admitting the importance of versatility and the competition around her.
“I’ve been running at both (centre positions) and trying to cover both of them, as have other players as well. I think having an ability to hopefully do the two and they’re not worlds apart in terms of how the positions are played.”
As a veteran of four World Cups, including a herculean performance in the final to help England lift the title in 2014, Scarratt is well placed to comment on the makeup of this current squad, particularly after five weeks together. But she isn’t getting ahead of herself because; “first and foremost it’s all about these warm-up games and WXV, and also just trying to get through pre-season.”
“I think there’s always a really nice blend, I think this group, we’ve spent so much time together, more so than probably a lot of the squads I’ve been a part of, so that always helps in terms of just that bond off-field and then how you come together on it.”
When asked to comment on the new, exciting faces in the squad Scarratt said “I think you know, no matter how many times you’ve played the game, no matter how many caps you’ve got, there’s always something to be learned from everybody.” She also name-checked her Loughborough Lightning teammate Bo Westcombe-Evans as “super talented” after her prolific try scoring exploits on the wing in the PWR.
“It’s always nice when you get players in from different clubs. You know we have a certain way at Loughborough, a certain way at England, but I may have never thought about something the way Phoebe (Murray) does at Bristol.”
England’s two friendlies against France and the Black Ferns are both hosted at Allianz Stadium, which is a fantastic opportunity. The Red Roses only played at Twickenham (now Allianz Stadium) once this Six Nations, with three away fixtures and their other home fixture taking place at Ashton Gate, home of the Bristol Bears.
With the Allianz Stadium’s capacity of 82,000 dwarfing Ashton Gate’s 27,000, playing at Twickenham is a far different experience. Scarratt went on to say ‘nobody wants to be surprised at a World Cup; you want to have that step out of the way before’ indicating the valuable experience playing in front of this large crowd will provide.
“Any opportunity you have to play there is amazing, obviously. Then you couple it with the current world champions, the team that we have a hell of a lot of history against, and always I think traditionally as well produce some of the very best test matches. So, I think that opportunity for us to come together and on our home soil is a pretty cool one for our fans and building into what we hope will be a pretty mega World Cup tournament.”