England are prepared for crisis ahead of World Cup
THE slickness of the passing, from fly-half to centre to winger, showed the team at their best as they swiftly worked to clear the danger. The pile that scrum-half Natasha Hunt had burrowed into, however, was no collapsed maul.
Beneath the mound of debris lay a young casualty, trapped by the broken masonry of a collapsed building, and it was rubble the rugby stars were moving from hand to hand along the line in a race to free her from her concrete tomb.
While other teams may gear up for next month’s World Cup with extra fitness routines, or line-out drills, England women’s rugby squad have been search and rescue training.
The England women’s rugby squad warmed up to defend their world crown in Ireland next month by spending an arduous two days on exercise with the Serve On humanitarian assistance and disaster response charity.
Transported from their normal training camp, the squad and training staff arrived in a derelict village in Wiltshire in the dead of night and had to build their own tented accommodation in the dark before crawling into their sleeping bags at 2am, only to be woken at 5am to prepare their field breakfast before an operational briefing. They had been diverted from a rugby tour to help out after an earthquake, they were told before being pitched into a series of challenging scenarios.
They tried out some of the charity’s technical search equipment, were taught about trauma medicine techniques, learned about running an operations room and practised some of the throw-line techniques Serve On’s rescuers might use in a flood situation.
Team captain and No 8 Sarah Hunter, (below) recently voted the World Player of the Year, said: ‘We’re doing it to see what we can learn from other teams, what they do well and why. Seeing how the Serve On rescuers operate as a team in difficult situations can be a lesson for us.’ The players were then placed in various mock disaster scenarios, rescuing live casualties buried beneath rubble, or trapped in overturned cars, and planning a refugee camp to accommodate disaster survivors. Head coach Simon Middleton said: ‘The great thing about these girls is that they cope. They are adaptable and resilient and still they perform.’