England rugby union legend Emily Scarratt has introduced her retirement from the game.
Scarratt, 35, is a two-time Ladies’s Rugby World Cup winner having starred of their 2014 triumph and was a key determine because the Pink Roses received the game’s largest honour once more in September 2025.
England head coach John Mitchell described her as a “once-in-a-generation participant” whereas RFU CEO Invoice Sweeney referred to as her a “position mannequin for 1000’s.”
Scarratt goes down as one in every of England’s biggest ever gamers following a profession which spanned 17 years on the high of the game. She made her England debut in 2008, and went on to win 119 caps.
She has been a key determine in England’s dominance of the ladies’s sport within the northern hemisphere, profitable 11 Six Nations titles. She additionally captained Crew GB on the Rio Olympics in 2016 and received Commonwealth bronze with England in 2018.
Whereas she goes down as one of many nice teammates and centres, she additionally claimed a number of particular person information and honours.
In 2019 she was named World Rugby Ladies’s Participant of the Yr and can also be the Pink Roses’ all-time high factors scorer with a haul of 754 factors with 54 tries, 158 conversions and 56 penalties.
She additionally holds a novel place in English historical past throughout each the lads’s and ladies’s sport. She’s the primary participant to compete in 5 World Cups, a feat she achieved when she got here off the bench within the Pink Roses’ 2025 opener towards the US in August.
“It has been the best privilege to put on the England shirt and to signify my nation for therefore a few years,” Scarratt stated. “Rugby has given me every part; unimaginable teammates, recollections, and experiences I am going to carry with me eternally.
“I nonetheless love the sport, however the time feels proper to step away. You do not at all times get the possibility in sport to make that call for your self, and I really feel so fortunate to take action by myself phrases, happy with every part I have been a part of.
“From my first cap in 2008 to strolling out in entrance of greater than 80,000 individuals at a World Cup ultimate, the journey has been unimaginable. To have witnessed and performed a component within the transformation of ladies’s rugby from beginner to skilled is one thing I am immensely happy with.
“I wish to say an enormous thanks to my household; my Mum, my Dad and my brother Joe for his or her assist proper from the beginning — from taking part in at Leicester Forest all the way in which to the Allianz Stadium, you might have been wonderful.
“To all those that have supported me from my academics, to my coaches and teammates at my first membership by to Lichfield, Loughborough Lightning and England — thanks for every part. Thanks too to the wonderful followers of ladies’s rugby who’ve grown and grown in numbers and who’ve at all times been a part of what makes taking part in for England so particular.
“Whereas it is the best second to cease taking part in, I am actually excited to remain concerned with the RFU and to assist form the way forward for the sport. The ladies’s sport is in a tremendous place, and I am proud to nonetheless be a part of its journey.”
Scarratt will now head right into a specialist teaching and mentoring position with the RFU which the organisation says will deal with “supporting participant growth throughout the England pathways and serving to nurture the subsequent era of expertise.”
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Pink Roses head coach John Mitchell added: “Emily is a once-in-a-generation participant. Her high quality, her calmness beneath strain, and her potential to guide by instance set the usual for everybody round her. “There was no higher instance of this than the position she performed in the course of the current World Cup, the place she added immense worth off the sphere, regardless of not taking part in as a lot as she may need hoped for — that’s simply the sort of particular individual that she is.
“She’s had a huge effect on the Pink Roses and on ladies’s rugby globally, and we’re thrilled she’ll proceed to share that have by a unique position.”
RFU CEO Invoice Sweeney stated: “Emily’s contribution to English rugby can’t be overstated – on and off the sphere she has been a mannequin skilled, a pacesetter, and a job mannequin for 1000’s of women who’ve picked up the ball due to her. We’re delighted that she’ll stay a part of the England Rugby household within the season forward and proceed to assist form its future.”
