Sarah Hunter retired from playing in 2023 after making 141 appearances for England’s Red Roses. Now her ambition is to coach at international level.
When Sarah Hunter retired from playing she was the most-capped women’s international, England’s most-capped player – male or female – and her glittering CV included a Rugby World Cup and 10 Six Nations winners medals.
The ambition and determination that took her from playing rugby as a nine-year-old at primary school, to the pinnacle of the international game, is now driving Hunter’s ambition to become a high performance international coach.
Hunter cut her coaching teeth at Loughborough Lightning, where she is head coach of the university team and forwards coach of their Allianz Premier 15s side. She enjoyed it so much that she now hopes to coach at the highest level.
“Even though I was still playing I really enjoyed the coaching I was doing,” Hunter told World Rugby.
“Coaching at an elite level gave me a real buzz and I wanted to challenge myself and get better to see if it was something I could move into when I stopped playing.”
England are already utilising Hunter’s skills as Red Roses’ transition and assistant coach and she will be their defense coach at this year’s WXV.
“I have the ambition to develop into a high-performance international coach and I believe the Gallagher High Performance Academy will provide me with opportunities to learn and grow and begin my journey to reaching my goal,” she said.