Emily Scarratt on adapting to England coaching role: 'She's fundamentally been my FAQ page'

If Emily Scarratt had any thoughts that her move from England player to England coach would be seamless, she was quickly reminded that her place in the squad had changed since being named as the Red Roses new attack and backs coach.

The double World Cup winner and Rio 2016 Olympian, who finished with 119 caps, 754 points, and the 2019 World Rugby Player of the Year award, was asked to take over from Lou Meadows in January, and while Scarratt is familiar with life in camp before a Guinness Women’s Six Nations, she has been discovering that certain things have changed.

“I did get a fair amount of stick the other day when I poked my head around the dressing room door,” said Scarratt. “It is very much a players’ dressing room, and I wanted to catch somebody and talk to them and a few of my good friends screamed at me that I wasn’t a player and to get out. All in good jest of course.”

Scarratt retired after the Red Roses won their second World Cup. She had already begun work as a player coach with her Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) club Loughborough Lightning, and during the World Cup she had access to the coaching team’s inner thoughts during her role as water carrier.

Red Roses head coach John Mitchell clearly liked Scarratt’s input and what he had seen of her with Lightning, and in January Women’s Performance Manager Charlie Hayter sounded her out about the role, before Mitchell followed up. It was possibly sooner than expected, but she sought advice from former Red Roses captain and team-mate Sarah Hunter, who followed a similar path, and the 36-year-old accepted the offer.

“I did give it a good think, because it’s quite a different slant and having spent a lot of my lifetime in camp, I was looking forward to not being in camp for a period of time and having that little bit more flexibility and freedom with my time,” she said.

“It’s an opportunity for the Six Nations and then we will see where we’re all at. If I’m doing a good job, if I’m enjoying it, we’ll see where that leaves me afterwards. Otherwise, I’m very committed to being at Loughborough.

“Mitch (John Mitchell) heads up the lot so there’s different ideas in terms of the direction and there may be some slight tweaks to the style of play, but fundamentally, we’ve got players that will drive that. We’ll make some tweaks, but nothing too crazy.”

Hunter played a big role in Scarratt taking the role, and as well as being team-mates for England, they also played together at Lightning. After Hunter’s retirement in 2023, the former number eight initially joined the coaching staff as transition coach, before she moved across to look after defence.

“She’s fundamentally been my FAQ page, so anything I’m not sure about or is a small, little question about little things, she helps,” Scarratt said. “I spoke to her when it was initially offered to me, just around what it looks like, what she enjoys about the role and where perhaps I can fit. She’s been a huge help.

“I’m so used to the environment but not used to doing it this side of the fence. Where I should be? What I should be wearing? How do these things pan out? What does that mean on the schedule? With really daft things, she’s been brilliant in terms of being very patient with me and answering lots of my stupid questions.”

Scarratt’s role as England attack and backs coach is the latest entry in a burgeoning portfolio that includes coaching with Loughborough, hosting a podcast, television punditry, and now being a Fancierge for IHG Hotels and Resorts, the official hotel partner of the Guinness Women’s Six Nations.

Her latest role means she can be seen working alongside fellow Fancierge Joe Marler, making pastries and trying paddleboarding, among other activities, though it was one of the calmer activities on offer that stands out in her memory.

“He is so much fun (Marler), and we stayed at an IHG hotel, so it was an amazing place,” Scarratt said. “We got to go and do a few of the fan experiences. We were walking around the hotel with paddle boards and bumping into each other. It was very slapstick, but a lot of fun.

“He didn’t excel at the patisserie baking, he’s all fingers and thumbs, and not particularly dainty with that stuff. The first thing we did was in a spa, in our robes, and I looked over and there’s Joe Marler in a dressing gown in a room being filmed to do this and we call it work.”

Scarratt’s first assignment as attack and backs coach will take her back to Allianz Stadium for England’s round one Six Nations match against Ireland. The last time she was there she was celebrating her second World Cup win in front of a world record crowd of 81,885.

So far 75,000 tickets have been snapped up for a match on Saturday that drew 48,778 two years ago, a clear sign of the growing interest in women’s rugby.

England will be up against a side that has gone from bottom place in the 2023 Six Nations to third behind England and France in the latest two editions, and from not qualifying for the 2021 World Cup to a 2025 World Cup quarter-final.

All this has come after Scott Bemand’s appointment as head coach in 2023, and he is someone else that Scarratt knows well, as one of her predecessors as England attack coach.

“They have made brilliant progress,” Scarratt said. “They jumped from WXV3 one year to WXV1 and beat New Zealand. For the World Cup, it was just tough for them. That quarter final game against France was probably unlucky right at the death.

“They have some fantastic players that have really matured in the last couple of years. They have a really good, strong, core squad. Many of them play in the PWR, so we know many of them. It’s going to be a real challenge. They progressed really well through the World Cup and this time last year we played them it was really tight at half time.

“It is certainly not going to be easy, but a full Allianz Stadium will be a cracking occasion.”

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IHG Hotels & Resorts, the official hotel partner of the Guinness Women’s Six Nations, has appointed Emily Scarratt as its official “Fancierge” where she finds and tests the most authentic experiences that transform every Guinness Six Nations trip into a weekend of new pre-match rituals. Fans can sign up for these complimentary experiences in different host cities at ihgfancierge.com