There’s great expectation on Hunter’s professionals

NICK VERDIER talks to England captain Sarah Hunter bidding for double glory in 2017

Sarah Hunter is the best player in the world and is determined to lead England to the same feat with a glorious Six Nations and World Cup double in 2017.

With Sevens having taken over for the past couple of seasons in the lead up to the Rio Games, the Bristol No.8, who was named World Rugby’s player of the year last November, has been holding the fort for the XVs.

Despite missing some star names, Hunter was close to leading England to a Grand Slam last year – defeat in France on the final weekend ended their hopes of a first title in four years. Their 2017 challenge has been boosted by the RFU’s decision to turn the entire EPS squad professional ahead of the World Cup in Ireland.

Such commitment from the RFU will also add huge pressure on Hunter and her 2014 World Cup winners.

“The World Cup is our main priority this year but we haven’t won the Six Nations since 2012 and we want to get our hands on the trophy again,” she told The

Rugby Paper. “We want to go one step better this year. But we can’t be looking further than France at Twickenham next week.

“We’re itching to get going and playing the French at the home of English rugby doesn’t need any more build-up to get us going.

“The expectation will be higher on us now because we’re professional but we always strive to be as good as possible so it won’t change from our point of view.

“We always set the bar really high but we understand that we’ll start from scratch in Ireland like the other 11 teams. We’re not going to Ireland to defend or retain our title.

“We’ll go there looking to win this World Cup regardless of what happened in 2014. To achieve that we need game time and the Six Nations will allow us to build things up nicely.”

On her new life as a professional rugby player, she added: “It’s fantastic. I’d never thought I’d ever be able to say I’m a professional rugby player.

“Training full-time allows to bring so much more quality to our training sessions but most importantly we have time to recover and mentally switch off which can be hard to do when you have a full-time job on the side.

“We’re now able to train harder and do more analysis on the opposition. We’ll be fitter and stronger which will bring confidence when things get tough.

“We’ll know we have what it takes to turn things around or go for the full 80 minutes because we’ve trained at that intensity or even higher. Hopefully improvements will show during the Six Nations and at the World Cup.”