Emily Scarratt has announced her retirement from rugby after a 17-year international career. The two-time World Cup winner said in a statement that the \u201ctime feels right to step away\u201d.<\/p>\n
Scarratt made her England debut in 2008 and went on to win 119 caps and 11 Six Nations titles. The 35\u2011year\u2011old centre represented the Red Roses in five World Cups, the only England player to do so.<\/p>\n
At club level Scarratt played for Lichfield and Loughborough Lightning. She will remain at the Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby club Loughborough as an assistant coach and she will take on a specialist coaching and mentoring role with the Rugby Football Union this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been the greatest privilege to wear the England shirt and to represent my country for so many years,\u201d Scarratt said. \u201cRugby has given me everything; incredible teammates, memories, and experiences I\u2019ll carry with me forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still love the game, but the time feels right to step away. You don\u2019t always get the chance in sport to make that decision for yourself, and I feel so lucky to do so on my own terms, proud of everything I\u2019ve been part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my first cap in 2008 to walking out in front of more than 80,000 people at a World Cup final<\/a>, the journey has been incredible. To have witnessed and played a part in the transformation of women\u2019s rugby from amateur to professional is something I\u2019m immensely proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarratt is the Red Roses\u2019 all-time top points-scorer with 754 and is the third-highest on their lists of caps and try-scorers. In 2019 she was named World Rugby player of the year.<\/p>\n Scarratt also excelled at sevens, representing Great Britain and captaining the team at the 2016 Rio Olympics where they finished fourth. She also won a Commonwealth Games bronze medal with England sevens in 2018.<\/p>\n At the 2014 Rugby World Cup Scarratt was named the player of the final and she was the top points-scorer throughout the tournament with 70. In the 2025 World Cup she made one appearance, coming off of the bench against USA in the tournament opener.<\/a><\/p>\n Scarratt thanked her family, coaches, teammates and fans for their support throughout her career and said: \u201cWhile it\u2019s the right moment to stop playing, I\u2019m really excited to stay involved with the RFU and to help shape the future of the game. The women\u2019s game is in an amazing place, and I\u2019m proud to still be part of its journey.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n John Mitchell, the England head coach, said of Scarratt: \u201cEmily is a once in a generation player. Her quality, her calmness under pressure, and her ability to lead by example set the standard for everyone around her.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was no better example of this than the role she played during the recent World Cup, where she added immense value off the field, despite not playing as much as she might have hoped for \u2013 that is just the kind of special person that she is.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s had a huge impact on the Red Roses and on women\u2019s rugby globally, and we\u2019re thrilled she\u2019ll continue to share that experience through a different role.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emily Scarratt has announced her retirement from rugby after a 17-year international career. The two-time World Cup winner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-216066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}