{"id":516020,"date":"2026-04-06T15:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516020\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T15:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T15:17:08","slug":"female-coaches-huge-for-womens-rugby-emily-scarratt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516020\/","title":{"rendered":"Female coaches ‘huge’ for women’s rugby – Emily Scarratt"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2018, Hunter’s former England head coach Simon Middleton tipped his captain to take over his role one day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Scarratt or Hunter, who have a combined total of 260 international caps, have the capability to take over as head coach for the next World Cup in 2033, Mitchell said: “Most definitely. I will probably be an old man by then, in my 70s I think.”<\/p>\n

He added: “They have been challenged for a long time in their careers and they are extremely curious.<\/p>\n

“You don’t play over 100 Test matches or become the most-capped English women’s player in history if you don’t have a strong work rate.<\/p>\n

“You have two wonderful people who are authentic, easy to work with and fun to work with.”<\/p>\n

A challenge for Scarratt, which Hunter has already had to navigate, is coaching her former team-mates.<\/p>\n

Scrum-half Natasha Hunt appears regularly on Scarratt’s podcast, ‘The Good, the Scaz and the Rugby’, and the pair were room-mates in camp.<\/p>\n

Pre-recorded shows will still go out but Scarratt will be fully focused on coaching during the Six Nations.<\/p>\n

“She [Hunt] tried [to still room with me], she tried pretty hard,” she joked.<\/p>\n

“Mo [Hunt] is rooming with Marlie Packer. So for anyone who was concerned, she is safe and well looked after.<\/p>\n

“There are certain things that I cannot talk to Mo about any more because there is an element where it is not appropriate for players to know certain things.<\/p>\n

“Obviously they know who I am. I know who they are. There is no point trying to pretend like we [former team-mates] are not friends or that we can’t share a joke with one another. That would almost be weirder.”<\/p>\n

Only three female head coaches were in charge at the last World Cup (France, Australia and Japan).<\/p>\n

Scarratt said it is too early to consider one day taking on that role but she remains passionate about increasing opportunities for female coaches.<\/p>\n

“Fundamentally, we need to do a better job – whether that is upskilling, making it more accessible or showing that it is visible – for more people to be in the game and to then move into those roles,” she added.<\/p>\n

“There is still probably a shortage of people available to do that, aside from ex-players. It is very cool to see women in those roles.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2018, Hunter’s former England head coach Simon Middleton tipped his captain to take over his role one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-516020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516020","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=516020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}