Serenity, skill and rounders: How ‘Scaz’ became the best

Emily Scarratt is officially the world’s top female rugby player – but what separates the centre from her rivals? Charlie Morgan speaks to those who know her well to find out ‘Some athletes get chewed up by stuff but she just has this great calmness about

Giselle Mather puts it best when she concedes that Emily Scarratt is “difficult to quantify”. Mather sounds almost apologetic when highlighting yet another of the 29-year-old’s talents.

“Have you heard her commentating on television?” asks the Wasps Ladies director of rugby. “She’s brilliant at that as well.”

Mather first encountered Scarratt, who embarks on the Six Nations as World Rugby player of the year, in the England Under-20 set-up some 12 years ago.

Before graduating to the senior side, scoring nine tries in her first eight games, Scarratt and a group of teenage peers – Natasha Hunt, Marlie Packer, Vickii Cornborough, Vicky Fleetwood, Rowena Burnfield and Sarah Mckenna among them – narrowed their focus on rugby together.

“When I took them on, they were good at sport, basically,” Mather says. “They had athletic potential. They would have excelled in PE lessons and would have been picked first at school.

“But they had no elite behaviours, no understanding of how training needs to be consistent and how you need to plan your time. I had them for three years and that was the journey we took.”

It is a mark of how Scarratt, also an England international in rounders, embraced those early lessons that Simon Middleton praises her diligence.

According to the England head coach, she and captain Sarah Hunter, herself a former World Rugby player of the year, both “take incredibly good care of themselves because they take huge pride in their performance”.

Such professionalism, founded on habits forged long before the Rugby Football Union’s introduction of full-time contracts in 2016, translates predictably well on the pitch.

“From a playing point of view, there isn’t much that Scaz can’t do,” Middleton says. “I look at her skill-set and it’s probably more rounded than any player in the game, male or female.

“She can run, pass, kick, catch, high-ball catch, everything… and apart from that she’s probably one of the nicest people you could meet. She’s incredibly rounded, as an athlete, a player and a person. To be honest, I think the award was probably well overdue.”

Hunter picks out the pass Scarratt threw to Lydia Thompson last November against France, setting up a match-winning try at Sandy Park, as a snapshot that epitomises her quality. Earlier in the game, Scarratt had passed 500 international points thanks to four successful penalties from the tee.

Mather compares Scarratt’s graceful, gliding gait to that of Jeremy Guscott. She has pushed for her protege to spend more time at full-back rather than outside centre, and recalls a spectacular try in San Diego six months ago. Fly-half Zoe Harrison hoisted a hanging cross-kick and Scarratt leapt superbly to gather and score.

There are other moments, of course. The jinking run to the line in the 2014 World Cup final beat five Canada defenders and sealed England’s triumph. Scarratt has since revealed in an interview that neither she nor midfield partner Rachael Burford were quite ready for the preceding line-out maul to end. A self-deprecating tone was typical.

“When she won the [world player of the year] award, she took it, was thankful for it, but hasn’t let it kill her,” Mather says. “Through the responsibility of being world player of the year, she will just play.

“That’s the other thing with her: she loves to play. That’s when she expresses herself without the humility. She just plays and doesn’t have to worry about anything else.”

“Some athletes get chewed up by stuff,” Mather says. “They might think, ‘I’m not making progress here’ or ‘I need to do that’. Emily has a great calmness around everything. At the right time, she’s absolutely on it. At others, she’s able to see things with a real serenity. Athletes that are pushing themselves, as she is, tend to get overly intense about things.

“That intensity spills into other areas, into their interactions with people. She seems to manage that better than I’ve seen from most people, despite being under pressure as the face of a sport that is going places.”

“I’ve yet to hear anyone say a bad word about Emily. Even the competitor for her shirt wouldn’t have a bad word. She has time for everyone, looks after the youngsters in the squad. She learns herself through doing that.”

By eschewing a flip back to sevens, Scarratt has resisted the chance to travel to the Tokyo Olympics and potentially avenge a gut-wrenching fourth-place finish in Rio de Janeiro four years ago. Her decision, a very tough one, is an almighty fillip for the 15-a-side format.

Scarratt is fiercely determined to drive England’s attempt to win the 2021 World Cup in New Zealand. The forthcoming Six Nations, beginning tomorrow with a tasty encounter in Pau against France, represents an important platform.

Scarratt begins the tournament with 85 caps, her longevity and excellence already quite remarkable for someone who does not turn 30 until Feb 8.

“Ten or 15 years ago, the women’s game just wasn’t where it is now,” Mather continues. “The skill level wasn’t, the understanding of players wasn’t. When you watch a Tyrrells Premiership game now, you are seeing proper rugby out there.

“Emily has been at pace with the changes in the game, and the changes in the game are ridiculous.”

Mather’s final comparison is an apt one that hinges on another sport. “She’s almost been like a little surfer, sitting on top of the wave.”

No doubt Scarratt could take that up for real and perform pretty well, too.