Sarah Hunter interview: 'There's no going back - mentally and physically I'm ready'

By the time Sarah Hunter woke up on Tuesday morning, the cat was out of the bag: Her record-breaking playing career will officially come to an end in Newcastle on Saturday.

Hunter felt a sense of relief, no longer would she have to tiptoe around questions from those who did not know or worry about saying the wrong thing in interviews.

But as her phone began to fill with well-wishes from friends, family, former team-mates, opponents and those who have watched her amass 140 England caps from the stands and sidelines, she knew she still had a job to do.

Tuesday is England’s most gruelling training day and with two sessions to get through in preparation for Scotland’s visit to Kingston Park, Hunter put her phone to one side and got into “rugby mode”.

“I can now just look forward with everyone knowing, but my phone’s not stopped all day!” Hunter tells RugbyPass at the end of a momentous day.

“It’s so genuinely lovely and nice and probably a little bit overwhelming to have this. I guess you don’t expect it. It’s crazy to think that so many people that you know, you don’t know, fans of the game, players of the game, are taking the time to send me a message, just to show me all this support.

“So, it’s been really, really special but I [didn’t] read the messages because I didn’t want to get emotional before training. I needed to be in a certain mindset because Tuesdays are our tough day, it’s our battle day, so there’s no room for emotion in it.”

Following 16 years playing elite rugby, Hunter insists that now is the right time to hang up her boots but that does not mean the decision to step away was an easy one.

Hunter put pressure on herself to make a call in the wake of England’s heart-breaking Rugby World Cup 2021 final defeat to New Zealand, but admits “I wasn’t really in the headspace to do that”.

“I literally went from, ‘I’m retiring’, ‘I’m not retiring’, ‘I’m retiring’, ‘I’m not retiring’,” she adds. “It was just quite an emotional process to go through because you’re still dealing with the World Cup and you’re like, ‘Well, if we’d have won, would it have been different?’

“My body wasn’t in a great place either, so I was just like, ‘I don’t know whether physically I can do this’. [I had] a few conversations with different people and it’s like, well, just take some time, get your body right, don’t make any hasty decisions because once you’ve made it, there’s no going back.

“And then the thought came in, well, what about the Newcastle game? And I always knew that deep down I really wanted to play in it. I just thought I couldn’t not play that game in my home city.

“I think I’d always look back and regret not giving it a go, even if I didn’t get there or if I got a few months in and was like, ‘Ah no, I’m just mentally done’.

“But I’m really pleased that I gave myself the time to make that decision. And then, probably like how I’ve been for the rest of my career, once I’d made that decision, I was like, ‘Right, I’m in, I’m fully in, I’m fully committed’ and it just seemed the right way to do it.”

Having returned to training and playing following her post-RWC 2021 break, Hunter was enjoying herself so much that she began to question whether bowing out following the first match of the Women’s Six Nations was the right thing to do.

Ultimately, though, she realised she had to be selfish. “Sometimes you do have to maybe decide, after so long, what is best for you,” she explains. “There’s just something that tells me, mentally and physically, I’m ready.”

That feeling was only confirmed when she told two of her closest friends in the England camp, Natasha ‘Mo’ Hunt and Emily Scarratt.

“The person I told first outside of my family was Mo, and then Scaz [Scarratt],” Hunter says.

“I think when I told them and the reaction they had, they were like, ‘It just seems like the perfect way’.

“And that really gave me the reassurance that I’d made the right decision. That, actually they were like, ‘Oh, we’ve got goosebumps knowing that’s going to be the way to finish’.”

There will certainly be an outpouring of emotion at a sold-out Kingston Park on Saturday when Hunter leads England into battle for the 85th and final time.

It was on the back pitches of that stadium that her journey in rugby union started. She sold programmes at Newcastle Falcons matches as a youngster, this is a moment she has waited almost her entire international career for.

“It will be really special,” Hunter, who grew up in nearby North Shields, adds. “It’s where rugby began [for me], in Newcastle, the North East, and it’s where it’s going to finish.

“I guess when you look back and you first start playing it would be beyond your wildest dreams to play in front of 10,000 people. I’ve been fortunate enough to play in front of a lot more, but knowing that we’re selling out in the North East of England is an incredible feeling.”

Scotland being the opponents also provides a certain symmetry to Hunter’s story. It was against them that she made her England debut, coming on for the final nine minutes of a 60-0 Women’s Six Nations win at Old Albanians in February 2007.

In the intervening 16 years she has played in four Rugby World Cup finals, winning in 2014, won a hatful of Six Nations titles and been named World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year in 2016.

By the time the curtain comes down on Hunter’s incredible career, moreover, only two players in the history of the game will have captained their country in more Tests than her, Sergio Parisse (93) and Richie McCaw (110).

Hunter has not thought about how she will feel when the whistle blows on Saturday, but sitting inside England’s cavernous training base in Surrey, it must seem a world away from that first cap at Old Albanians.

“It’s poles apart,” she says. “We didn’t have the same rose, we weren’t part of the same governing body, we weren’t full time, and we had this professional mindset, everyone did, but we were amateur. We didn’t have the support that we have now.

“I sometimes think, oh my god, we’ve nearly got more staff than players on a match day [now] and that’s incredible to see how far the game has come, and rightly so. I feel really lucky to have been part of that and to experience it.

“And I feel like the moment you got professional contracts, which is something I never thought I’d ever get to have in my lifetime as a rugby player, I think it just makes you appreciate it that little bit more.

“We’re in a great place, but you know, there’s always more that can be done. And the exciting plans that England Rugby have for the Red Roses and World Rugby has for women’s rugby as a whole, it’s a great place to be in.”

One thing Hunter is prepared for following Saturday’s swansong, is her removal from the Red Roses’ squad WhatsApp chat. “Amy Cokayne is in charge of it and she’s pretty cutthroat!”

But as the door to one group chat closes, another could soon open. “There’s a vintage Red Roses [club] and we got to really connect with them at the World Cup, which was really special,” Hunter explains.

Hunter has one final 80 minutes to enjoy before she can look forward to cheering on her mates from the stands, “with a few pints in my hand”.

“I’m excited to finally take a step back, watch it and be the Red Roses’ biggest fan,” Hunter says. She has certainly earned it.