Coreen Grant on striving for World Cup place after long-awaited knee surgery

Coreen Grant is in a good place following five weeks of training with Scotland’s extended squad post-knee surgery and fully focused on making Bryan Easson’s squad for the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

The 27-year-old winger, who recently joined Harlequins from Saracens ahead of the 2025/26 PWR season, had to bide her time to earn a first international cap in 2021, but, once she did, became an important part of the squad.

By the end of 2024 she had earned 15 caps, scored a number of tries and had become a crucial part of Scotland’s evolving attack.

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

She was ready to kick on in 2025, but, before the Guinness Women’s Six Nations came around, she had to get a long-standing knee problem sorted out.

“I had an ongoing knee issue for a while- essentially the cartilage in my left knee was causing an issue,” she explained.

“I was meant to start in the Fiji game at Hive Stadium last September and then, unfortunately, I had to pull out. Basically, my knee would sometimes lock when the cartilage would flip out of place and it did before that game.

“It wasn’t ideal, but it was manageable for a while and I played at WXV 2, but when I was back with Saracens it locked and we couldn’t get it back in.

“It kind of got to a point where surgery was the only option. That happened in February (2025) and the surgeon went in and found two tears in my cartilage so they did a double stitch up repair of them.”

Grant’s injury had been present for five years at this point so the chance was taken ahead of the World Cup to get it sorted.

“While the knee was still functioning at a high level most of the time, the medics didn’t want to go in and do anything so it was only once it became that much more problematic that the surgery was the best thing for me and the teams I play for.”

Given the operation came just over three months before Scotland’s extended World Cup training squad of 38 was due to be named at the end of May, did Grant ever fear that she might run out of time to put herself in contention for the big dance in England?

“I was of the opinion that actually it could have been worse, for example it could have happened in the middle of the Six Nations or now and that would have made timescales really tight for the World Cup,” she stated.

“It could have been any time really that surgery was needed. That was the thing with the knee locking, it was very unknown.

“When it happened I was like ‘well now I can actually get it fixed and it [the knee locking] won’t be kind of looming back there in my mind somewhere.

“It was clear that surgery was going to be needed at some point and as soon as it was the route to go down, obviously selection and getting back into the Scotland squad was the primary thing on my mind, and I knew what the recovery timeline looked like.”

Despite successful surgery the wing was completely off her feet for six weeks and then partially for another two, which she admits was a lot of time sitting around.

“The last few weeks being back training and slowly building things back up again have been great, it’s quite nice knowing that the knee issue is fixed and I can put that behind me and just focus on what’s ahead.”

While she was recovering from surgery, Grant, who grew up in Edinburgh and also spent time living in Los Angeles in her youth, joined the ‘Scotland squad Lego club’ founded by ACL-prone Meryl Smith.

In her spare time the Durham and Cambridge universities graduate also writes for nature and conservation magazine ‘Inkcap Journal’, but in the next few months rugby will take up most of her time, all being well.

Grant and the extended Scotland squad have just finished five weeks of training camps in Edinburgh and now have a couple of weeks of down time before preparing for their first summer Test in Italy on July 25th.

The second World Cup warmup game takes place in Ireland on August 2nd before the World Cup squad is named ahead of the opener against Wales on August 23rd.

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Given her performances in dark blue in the last couple of years, WXV 2 2023 winner Grant should have some money in the bank when it comes to selection.

But with Bristol Bears’ Meg Varley and up-and-coming youngsters Lucia Scott and Hannah Walker now pushing for back three spots alongside Chloe Rollie, Rhona Lloyd and Francesca McGhie, she is taking nothing for granted.

“There are 38 really good players here,” she concluded. “Competition is going to be really strong [for World Cup spots] so obviously I want to be putting my hand up as much as possible.

“The New Zealand World Cup in 2022 was such an incredible experience for me and I was just learning as much as possible back then.

“Now I’m a bit more experienced, I’ve been with the squad for a while, but there’s incredible players across the board and the competition is as great as ever.

“We’ve got young guns coming through in the squad which is fantastic, and I think my focus is on continuing to get myself fully fit and as strong and fast as possible to be in the mix for selection.

“We’ve always had a very ‘team first attitude’ with Scotland and that is the case now more so than ever, but as an individual I am fully focused on making it to the World Cup.”