The one hundred-cap club is for legends only.
Sarah Hunter, Rocky Clark, Katy Daley-McLean, Tamara Taylor, Emily Scarratt and Amy Garnett are the 6 Englishwomen to have attained that coveted milestone.
On Sunday in opposition to Italy in the Women’s 6 Nations, that quantity becomes seven when England captain Marlie Packer prospects out her crew.
The 34-year-aged flanker has performed with all six prior centurions and is however battling to understand joining these types of a historic club.
“I feel about the players before me who have received one hundred caps and I am just like ‘wow’,” Packer explained to BBC Sport.
“I had to ask my manager for 16 or seventeen tickets [to the game] the other day and the maximum allocation you can have on the app was 6.”
The Yeovil native produced her intercontinental debut in 2008 from Sweden but only performed forty minutes and did not attribute yet again for far more than a few decades.
“It wasn’t an natural environment that was the wonderful, open and welcoming put that it is currently,” Packer stated.
“I experienced just turned 18, realized no person and failed to delight in the complete working experience.
“The time concerning my initially and 2nd cap was the Marlie Packer you see right now – I have developed because then.”
She went on to build herself as an essential participant for the 2014 Rugby Earth Cup in France.
Globe Cup glory adopted and Packer’s local rugby club framed her picture with the trophy along with Martin Johnson lifting the men’s version, signifying her neighborhood legend standing.
The wish to attain 100 caps and grow to be the most effective player in the earth drove her to new heights, after preliminary uncertainties.
Though out going for walks her canine a several many years ago, Packer was on the cell phone to Alex Austerberry, her mentor at Saracens, questioning no matter if she was continue to very good more than enough to start for the Purple Roses.
“I was in a bit of a predicament about exactly where my career was likely,” she claimed. “New gamers were coming into England and was I slipping out of favour.
“We had a conversation about winning entire world participant of the yr. I assumed, ‘I am not likely to win that but I would like a purpose of finding to 100 caps’.
“Alex and I have straight and trustworthy conversations and he stated it was doable – ‘you just have to have to get your head down and work on the items we are telling you to do the job on’.”
Doing precisely that, far more caps and trophies adopted in advance of she took over the England captaincy from Hunter through the 2023 Six Nations.
The duty elevated her performances to assistance England document a further Six Nations Grand Slam and partly avenge their Globe Cup ultimate defeat in 2022 by profitable the inaugural WXV1 event in opposition to the Black Ferns on their personal patch.
The England captain was then named Planet Rugby Women’s Player of the Calendar year for 2023.
“My 99th cap was extremely distinctive, we received WXV in New Zealand off the back again of a 12 months before, when we shed that Entire world Cup around there,” she recalled.
“It was a quite special instant to then decide on up earth player of the calendar year and an epic way to end that event.”
WXV signalled the start out of a new era under head coach John Mitchell, who took in excess of from Simon Middleton and retained Packer as his skipper for this year’s 6 Nations.
“When you are in her presence she is simple and is just herself, which is what I really like about her,” Mitchell told BBC Sport.
“She qualified prospects with her steps, which probably satisfies me as when I appear back on my past I was likely that form of participant.
“You can see that Marlie has grown as a man or woman, she is seriously refreshing as a chief and individuals appear up to her, which is amazing.”
Again-to-back Grand Slams as captain will be the purpose ahead of Packer’s focus turns to 2025 and a home Globe Cup.
Will Yeovil Rugby Club will need to obtain space for another photo on the wall following yr?
