Emily Scarratt: History-maker on 'incomparable' Red Roses, women's rugby growth - 'I couldn't aspire to be pro rugby player'

The opening fixture of England's home Women's Rugby World Cup in 2025 against the USA drew a crowd of nearly 43,000 at Sunderland's Stadium of Light. The opening fixture of England's home World Cup in 2010 was attended by a maximum of 2,500 at Guildford's Surrey Sports Park.

Two home tournaments, two vastly different occasions, two totally different eras.

Playing in both was one Emily Scarratt - starting in 2010 at outside centre as a 20-year-old, and emerging off the bench in August as a 35-year-old.

The respective finals for both those World Cups saw 13,000 watch the Red Roses suffer defeat to New Zealand at The Stoop in 2010, while a remarkable crowd of 81,885 were present for the Red Roses' 2025 victorious World Cup final defeat of Canada late last month. To describe the change as stark hardly does it justice.

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On Tuesday, Scarratt announced her retirement from the sport, finishing with 119 Test caps, two World Cup titles, 11 Six Nations winners' medals, an Olympic Games participation (Rio 2016) and as 2019's World Player of the Year. She is the only English rugby player in history - male or female - to appear in five Rugby World Cups.

Her career spanned amateurism to fully-fledged professionalism, taking in and experiencing each step in the astonishing growth of popularity and interest in women's sport and women's rugby.

Scarratt truly lived the growth of women's rugby, starting while working in education at King Edward's all-boys school in Birmingham, and finishing following a World Cup final occasion every bit as mesmeric and seismic as anything in professional sport.

"Honestly, the changes are not even comparable," Scarratt tells Sky Sports following her decision to call it a day.

"Looking at those two World Cups, that's a really obvious way of doing it. You look at the fans, you look at the engagement, you look at the stadiums we're playing at, you look at even the kit we're wearing, the support we have, the sponsors we have, all of that.

"There's some really tangible ways of kind of showing the differences. Broader than that, the amount of people that we have now playing the game, the amount of people we have coming to support or show an interest, I think is amazing.

"There's been a hell of a lot of change in that time and I'm pretty glad I've lived through some of that."

From late-night training to days of Netflix binging - Scarratt's road to becoming 'best ever'

Born in Leicester, Scarratt reveals hers was an upbringing where sport appealed early.

"I was a sporty kid that did everything I possibly could - badminton, netball, football, rugby, anything that was going, basically," she says. "Especially team sports, that was always kind of my thing."

Her father and brother both played rugby, while Scarratt describes her mother as "sporty at school." While competitiveness and sport was "definitely in the blood", though, the career she would go on to have was a genuine impossibility to imagine.

"Becoming a professional rugby player, it was never something I thought I would be able to do because I couldn't aspire to be that," Scarratt says.

"Obviously people now have the opportunity to come straight out of school, college, university, and become a professional rugby player, which is awesome. But I'm really glad I had to balance the two for a period of time. I'm really grateful I had that.

"I went to university and then worked for a couple of years before we got our first contracts.

"When we got them, the first thought was: 'This is amazing. What do we do?' Because we now had rest days in the week, which we'd never experienced. We trained in the day, which we'd never experienced.

"We literally just binge-watched Netflix and wasted a lot of time in that first week. It's such a transition to know what to do with your time and how to use it properly. Then you find a better balance.

"It's the best job I've ever had, that's for sure."

Scarratt's long-time team-mate and room-mate at international level Katy Daley-McLean described her this week as the "greatest women's rugby player in history".

Such is the modesty of Scarratt, Daley-McLean even prefaced the statement by saying "she will hate this".

But the tall, rangy centre proved a magnificent player throughout her career. And more than just talented, she was a big-game and big-moments player, consistently scoring at crucial junctures. An accomplished goalkicker, she also retires as the Red Roses' leading points scorer of all time with 754.

In England's victorious 2014 World Cup final victory over Canada it was Scarratt who scored the decisive try in Paris with six minutes to play and the score poised at 14-9 - "I wish you could bottle that feeling and feel it again at certain times in your life," she says of that moment - she also kicked three penalties and a conversion in the win.

"I'm not quite sure how to react to that," Scarratt says of Daley-McLean's tribute. "Coming from her, she's probably one of the other ones that's right up there as well, so it's a massive compliment to hear that.

"I don't even know how you begin to quantify those sorts of things. I'm immensely proud that anyone would think that. It's obviously subjective, but immensely proud.

"All I've ever done is loved playing the game and tried to always give my best and keep a smile on my face while I was doing it. The achievements have been a consequence of that."

Why now? 'I've done everything I wanted to'

Scarratt may be 35 and ended up largely as a non-playing squad member under John Mitchell during August and September's World Cup - a somewhat conflicting role for one of England's greats - but even still, the question often pondered re sporting retirements is: Why now?

In September 2023, Scarratt had to undergo serious neck surgery which ruled her out of the sport for some 13 months. Retiring from rugby on her terms and while healthy was a major factor.

Had England won the 2022 World Cup final against New Zealand at a packed Eden Park, she may well have walked away from the sport sooner, but the disappointment of that and the pull of a home World Cup proved too much, she admits.

"I'm of a decent age whereby in the last couple of years, I started planning for retirement. I had a serious neck injury, which meant that may have happened a bit sooner than I'd wanted.

"I think post last World Cup [2022], obviously being unsuccessful and having the opportunity to play in a home World Cup, that was always then something that really excited me. Even just the chance to make that squad was something that definitely drove me.

"I don't know how much more you feel you can do when you've won a home World Cup and done a fair few other bits in the game.

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"I think there's a bit of luck involved in my longevity, if I'm totally honest.

"I have had a couple of big injuries, but along the way I've had long spells in the game. I think there's an element maybe of being pretty resilient and robust as well, which again, whether that's through my hard work or whether it's through just a little bit of fluke and good luck, I don't know, but I'm grateful for it.

"I'm also a relatively relaxed character, so there's obviously a hell of a lot of highs and lows as you go through things and stresses and whatnot, and just being able to not peak or trough too aggressively with those things and just enjoy the ride has definitely helped.

"I'm excited about what's next, albeit not 100 per cent sure on what those things are. Being excited about essentially not training and not playing is probably a good idea you're done as well."

'Speed of women's rugby growth has surprised me'

When the RFU set out a stated aim to sell out Twickenham for the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup final some years ago, Scarratt admits her reaction was one of extreme doubt.

In 2023, the Red Roses had set a world record for a women's Test crowd of 58,498 during the Six Nations against France. But instead of plateauing, the support and interest in the game has continued to increase.

"It has surprised me, if I'm honest.

"The RFU said they wanted to sell out Allianz Stadium, Twickenham for the World Cup final at some point, and when I read that a few years ago I was like: 'That sounds ambitious...'

"Then a few Six Nations games happened and I was like: 'Okay, hold on a minute.' And the growth since has just been through the roof.

"It's really taken off, which is absolutely amazing. One of the most pleasing things for me this World Cup was seeing how well the whole thing was supported.

"So not just when we played, as I think you kind of expect that from any host nation, but at Franklin's Gardens they hosted a doubleheader and there was no home nations playing (Italy vs Brazil, France vs South Africa) and it was sold out.

"Things like that, for me as an English rugby fan, made me really proud.

"I think that every player from around the world came to this tournament and was like, this is really cool. I think we've benchmarked it.

"So whether it's the standard moving forward, I don't know. But I'd love it to be that."