Hunter feared career was over
CAPTAIN FINALLY ENDS 13-MONTH INJURY LAY-OFF TO FACE ITALY
ENGLAND captain Sarah Hunter will return for the first time in 13 months as head coach Simon Middleton makes sweeping changes for tomorrow’s Women’s Six Nations match in Italy. Hunter is one of 10 alterations to the team that started the 52-10 win against Scotland.
England will reach the Women’s Six Nations final with victory in Parma. Loughborough Lightning star Hunter, 35, admitted she wondered if her career was over after suffering a neural neck injury and hamstring strain that left her out of action for more than a year.
“It was pretty difficult as the injury that kept me out of the Six Nations in terms of my hamstring was pretty straightforward but, as has been widely reported, I had this neck neural issue,” she said.
“That was probably the toughest injury I’ve ever had based on the fact that no one knew what it was. I went to see different specialists, had numerous MRIs, numerous tests.
“I had electric tests, neurologists, all sorts of different things and you would go to an appointment hoping to get an answer and there was no answer. “They then stop looking at you as a rugby player and start looking at you as a person as I lost power in my hand and it was affecting day-to-day stuff, doing my shoelaces, holding things.
“Eating, going to my car, all the things you need to do day to day, so they start to begin to have conversations with you around your longterm day-to-day life, which is quite right.
“As a rugby player that becomes quite worrying because you then think, what happens if I don’t get to play rugby? That was pretty tough but our England medical team have been brilliant.”
In the backs, Lightning’s Helena Rowland retains her place as England’s starting 10 against Italy.
Abby Dow returns on the left wing and Loughborough’s Emily Scarratt, who captained the side against Scotland in Hunter’s absence, remains at outside centre.
The Women’s Six Nations is being played in a new format this year, with two pool games and a final, after being delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But Scarratt, left, from Desford, believes having a final could help the side’s World Cup preparations.
“You do not get a final very often in our calendar,” Scarratt told BBC
Radio 5 Live’s Rugby Union Weekly.
The 31-year-old admitted that she “was not sure” about the new format initially.
“I am a traditionalist. I like the format of playing five games,” she said.
“But we now get the opportunity to play a final.
“Sometimes when you get to that moment it is a World Cup and all of a sudden a big deal.”
Aside from the benefits of a final, Scarratt is glad that the Women’s Six Nations is taking place in a different window to the men’s tournament.
“We’re not having to compete with men’s kick-off times or a load of people watching the [men’s] game at Twickenham and a much lower percentage watching the [women’s] game at the Stoop,” she explained.
“That is the exciting bit for me. It would be great to have crowds to quantify what that would look like but at the same time it is really important for us to stand on our own two feet this time around.”
With regular skipper Hunter absent through injury, Scarratt took on the captaincy against Scotland.
It is a role she has filled several times before but the Loughborough centre said the experience was “different” without crowds.
England team: 15 Ellie Kildunne, 14 Jess Breach, 13 Emily Scarratt (vc), 12 Megan Jones, 11 Abby Dow, 10 Helena Rowland, 9 Leanne Riley, 1 Vickii Cornborough, 2 Amy Cokayne, 3 Shaunagh Brown, 4 Zoe Aldcroft, 5 Cath O’Donnell, 6 Alex Matthews, 7 Vicky Fleetwood, 8 Sarah Hunter (c).
Replacements: 16 Lark Davies, 17 Hannah Botterman, 18 Bryony Cleall, 19 Harriet Millar-Mills, 20 Poppy Cleall, 21 Claudia MacDonald, 22 Zoe Harrison, 23 Sarah McKenna.