Mo Hunt

Mo Hunt walked into the room filled with the people that had both built and broken her, with emotions still raw after a World Cup she couldn’t even bear to watch. She’d reached a pivotal moment, and there was only one way it was going to play out.

“At the full-time whistle, I couldn’t hold my emotion,” admits Mo [Natasha] Hunt, the England scrum-half. “I was just sat on the bike pedalling away, tears running down my face, I hugged a couple of team-mates and I think a lot of emotion came out of me that day, it just felt like a new era.

“There was definitely a bit of added release because I was back there [with England],” she adds. “We’d managed to beat New Zealand and start a whole new journey.”

England’s 33-12 WXV1 win over New Zealand in early November 2023 exorcised demons for many Red Roses. Hardly surprising, given it was against these same opponents, in the same city, within a few days of this date last year, that World Cup dreams had been brutally crushed 34-31. But for Mo, it was particularly tough. She hadn’t even been there in 2022. 

A shoo-in for the World Cup squad for many close followers of the women’s game, Simon Middleton’s omission of the Gloucester-Hartpury co-captain, 67-cap scrum-half, World Cup winner, and double Olympian, took many by surprise. Including Mo. “We got told that you could either have a phone call or text between six and seven to let you know if you weren’t selected,” Mo tells Rugby Journal, picking up the story. “You could fill in a form to say how you wanted to be told: ‘don’t care’, or you’d rather a text, or phone, and I went for phone call, because I thought, ‘it’s a bit of a cop out if you’re having to just text me and be like, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re not taking you’. I just didn’t want to not have an opportunity to ask, ‘why?’.”

That said, even when the day of selection came around, and the phone rang, Mo still didn’t see what was coming. “My phone rang at twenty to seven, when I was just walking back through the door,” she says. “And even when it was ringing, I thought I was just going to get a kick up the arse, like, ‘we’re taking you, but you need to show this and this’. 

“And then Midds said, ‘Oh, this is a really tough one...’. As soon as I heard his voice, I thought, ‘Shit, this isn’t going the way I thought it was going to go’. 

Then, I immediately text Scaz [Emily Scarratt] and Sunts [Sarah Hunter] because I didn’t want them to read it on the group for the first time and I turned my phone off because I knew there was going to be an influx of messages.”

Mo’s omission was the headline among the players culled, which included the likes of Bryony Cleall, Vicky Fleetwood, and Sarah Beckett. “I think it was a bit of a shock across the board, it wasn’t just me that felt that,” she says. “And then I had a follow-up phone call with Midds the next day and, in all honesty, I don’t really know what was said, but I think he basically said that I was too instinctive as a player and they just wanted the nine to pass. 

“They didn’t need what I was offering,” she says succinctly, “it was along those lines. My mum got a bit obsessed with it, bless her, but only because she cares so much. She sent me a text saying, ‘ooh, you should listen to the Rugby Union Weekly podcast’, it was Midds doing an interview with Ugo [Monye] who asked why I’d been dropped, and I think I found out more from that than I did on the phone call. I didn’t play the game plan, basically. It was a tough one to take because I never knew that was how I was perceived, as a player.

“But I do understand how difficult these things are,” acknowledges Mo, “I know what it’s like to be a coach.”

The impact would continue to hit Mo for some time. “I was still going through waves of it, it’s almost like a bit of a breakup, I guess,” she concedes.

But breakups are made even harder when the love of your life is being broadcast on every television screen, covered by every newspaper and also filling your social media feed. “I didn’t really follow it at all, I couldn’t,” she says of the World Cup, “which I found really tough because I know that I’m somebody that people would go to saying, ‘Oh, this is a bit shit, or I’m struggling with this’, especially someone like Scaz, who doesn’t necessarily open up to a lot of people. 

“But I tried to just shut it out as if it wasn’t even happening,” continues Mo, “which was the right thing for me to do at the time.”

She did however attempt to watch one game. “I tried to turn on and watch the South Africa game because my housemate Tatyana Heard was starting that game, so I really wanted to support her. But I found it so difficult to watch. I was like, ‘I’m not ready to do this. I can’t do this yet’. 

“I just kind of shut myself off to the rugby world, which is mental because most of them [the players out there] were my mates.”

While Mo didn’t make it to New Zealand, three of her family did, because they made their travel plans before the squad was named. “My mum, dad and auntie went out,” she explains. “It’s actually quite savage. Mum was a head teacher at a primary school and she went to the governors and said, ‘I really want to go; I want to be able to have three weeks off’, because she was only going to go for the end. 

“They said, ‘No, you can either take a sabbatical for the year or you can’t go’ and she was like ‘I don’t want a sabbatical, I just want three weeks’.

“I never let them talk to me about stuff like this, because I don’t want them to jinx it, I’m a bit superstitious like that. But sometimes they have to book flights…”

Mo’s mum showed all the tenacity we’ve come to know from her daughter. “She ended up saying, ‘this isn’t an ultimatum but if you don’t let me [take three weeks] then I will retire. I will hand my notice in because it’s really important to me that I’m there’.”

School governors, however, are also known for their stubbornness. “And so she ended up retiring and I don’t bloody get selected,” explains Mo. “It was so awful.”

At least at first it was. “She left her job to go around the world and it was the best thing that happened because Mum and Dad, similar to my aunty, put everyone first and never really do anything for themselves, and they had an unbelievable trip and absolutely loved it.”

Mo also needed to find a new lease of life. “I remember that I found out [about being dropped] that Thursday, and on the Saturday, I went into train with the [Gloucester-Hartpury] girls but, in all honesty, I hadn’t really eaten or slept. 

“The first night I found out, I didn’t go to bed because I didn’t want to have to wake up and face it all again, which I know sounds ridiculous,” she admits. “But, to me, this is my world, you work so hard, you give so much and I’ve given so much for England for so long – God, how long have I been playing for England? Since 2007? And I fell really short, and I hadn’t experienced that before, so that was really, really tough. 

“I turned to alcohol a little bit, not gonna lie to you, I got very drunk that night, that’s why I didn’t go to sleep. I rocked up to training on the Saturday, I wasn’t meant to be there, and Lynny [Sean Lynn] was just like, ‘What are you doing?’ 

“I just needed to be around the girls, I just want to play rugby, run around with my mates and throw the ball around.”

The following week, Gloucester-Hartpury were due to play Quins, albeit with both sides shorn of their World Cup internationals. “There were the Irish girls left at the club and all of our cup players and like the old heads like Lundy [Rachel Lund] and all of those girls. 

“On the Friday, Lynny arranged to meet me for coffee, and said, ‘if I don’t see you eat, you’re not playing’. He made me have breakfast. I got that down me and then ran out with the girls.”

Mo found some solace in another player who had missed World Cup selection, Sarah Beckett. “To be there for her – she’d moved clubs and didn’t have a support network around her – gave me a bit of comfort as well, because we were going through the same thing. Being in each other’s company meant we really got through that together. 

“And then the girls were just amazing, they were insane, I had so much fun with them. We went out, we just did loads and loads of different bits together. Lynny was brilliant. He gave me all the time I needed, but also was like, ‘come on now, get over it, get over yourself’. 

“I threw myself into everything I could with rugby,” sums up Mo. “I just wanted to prove that wasn’t me, and I was better than that. My stubbornness is probably what got me through, to be honest, to try and prove a point.”

A driven Mo played a huge role in what was a spectacular club campaign for Gloucester-Hartpury. “We always had really good players and amazing club players, but not necessarily that go-forward punch in the forwards,” she says. “But you sign a Beckett, Sam Monahan, and Alex Matthews and you put them alongside Zoe, Maud and the girls that have done it the whole time, and we have unbelievable ball-carriers.

“I think our backline is one of the best in the league, but we’ve not really had that go-forward, gain-line ball before.”

That ‘go-forward’ took them to the top of the Allianz Premier 15s table, securing top spot over Exeter Chiefs, who they’d meet in the final at Kingsholm, or Queensholm as it became known that weekend. “It was epic,” she says of a final dominated by her team, who secured their first title with a 34-19 win. “Just from start to finish, just the whole week, the renaming to Queensholm, all that sort of stuff and, and for us then to go out in front of 10,000 fans… “We had our little trot round with all these fans screaming ‘Glawster…’ from The Shed and stuff like that. It was definitely a fairy tale moment.”

While the Red Roses have broken attendance records, at club level, support levels – with a few exceptions – are comparatively poor, even for finals, which means Gloucester-Hartpury have raised the bar considerably. “I think it’s kind of put a mark in the sand that you’ve got to hit 10,000,” says Mo. “The opportunity to play in front of your home fans is class and I think that should be the reward for winning the league because you don’t actually get anything [for topping the regular-season league table], which I didn’t know before.”

Crowds at games seems like an obvious priority for women’s Premiership clubs, but in previous tender years, gym facilities have been put above audience potential and proven player development. This is what has resulted in big names of the English game being cast adrift, including Waterloo, Wasps, Richmond and Mo’s former club Lichfield. “Yeah, I was gutted when we got kicked out of the league in that first cull,” she admits. “We’re still not over that, to be honest. 

“It was a hell of a team: there was me, Scaz, Amy Cokayne, Sunts, Fleeto, Harriet Millar-Mills  – so many class players. And we lost it because of the gym [Loughborough Lightning took their place], but you look at the talent we had, and it was actually crushing. 

“It’s great to see them back involved now though with Leicester Tigers. I think their badge is even on the Leicester Tigers shirt.”

After that brief trip down rugby memory lane, Mo brings herself back to the now. “We need people in stadiums,” she says, simply. “We need fan bases to see that as an exciting brand. If you’re watching a game of rugby and you see loads of people in the stands and they’re all going crazy and loving it, that makes you want to go. Whereas if you see a half empty stadium or a stadium that’s got hardly anyone in, then you question the credibility of what that is. 

“Ten thousand at Kingsholm for the final is unbelievable, but are we going to get anywhere near that this season? That’s something that we should be striving towards and that comes into the sustainability of the game. 

“If you’re not getting money back from ticket sales, or merchandise, how are you going to keep affording to pay these players and to be in this professional league and keep growing? The salary cap is going to keep going up, so how do you match that if you’re not getting people in? Where’s that revenue coming from?”

Mo’s own revenue comes from a number of streams, coaching, presenting, commentating… “I’ve got a great accountant,” she laughs. “So, my situation has recently changed. I can talk to you about it now, but I stepped away from my [England] contract two or three years ago now, around Covid. I picked up this role at Hartpury College, which was basically head of the women’s rugby programme. 

“It was alright for the year, but last year it just became so much. We trained four mornings a week, so I was getting up at six, four mornings a week, then training late for three evenings, then there was the podcast stuff with GSR [Good Scaz Rugby], the punditry stuff, and then I get called into England camp as and when.”

The workload meant she was forced to step down from the role at Hartpury, replacing it with another role as an under-23 transition coach for the Gloucester-Hartpury club, working with BUCS players and those newly into employment. “But,” she says, bringing us back to the thread. “I’ve just recently been offered an England contract as well.”

A permanent return to the fold completes a remarkable year for Mo. The last six months, in particular, have ensured that in the mind of everyone, from England coaches to club fans, she’s back at the top table of world-class scrum-halves – a renaissance that culminated in her wearing the number nine jersey for England’s victory over hosts New Zealand in the inaugural WXV1 tournament. The rebuild hasn’t been easy, especially when it began, with wounds still open, and the cheers of the World Cup only just beginning to fade. “I went back in [with England] under the same coaching and after the World Cup,” says Mo. “They sat me down for an IDP – Individual Development Plan. I was in a board meeting room in Gloucester with Midds, Scott [Bemand], Deacs [Louis Deacon], the S&Cs – I can’t remember if physios were there – then Lynn, Django [James Forrester], Murph [Dan Murphy], our Gloucester-Hartpury coaches. 

“Everyone was in this boardroom and that was the first time I’d like seen or spoken to anyone [from the England set-up] since World Cup, 

“It was a really tough moment,” she admits, “walking back into that room, because you’re making yourself so vulnerable again. I think they rang Lynny before [to sound him out], and he spoke to me before, saying, ‘How do you want to approach this?’. I just wanted to move on. There’s is no point in holding on to anything, going over anything, they made a decision, they made the decision for the squad they thought was best, whatever. 

“I just wanted to play rugby for England, it was water under the bridge. 

“I went in with a fresh outlook,” she continues. “Although it’s always hard to make yourself vulnerable after you’ve been quite hurt in a way that you never thought possible by rugby. But rugby for England meant more to me than my pride or being hurt again, so it wasn’t really a question, much to my mum’s disgust – she didn’t really want me to go back because she saw how hurt I got.”

Returning to the squad for the TikTok Six Nations, Mo duly got injured. “They told me I was due to be starting nine, and then I pulled my calf just before the first game, so I missed Sarah Hunter’s big hurrah which was gutting for me. I managed to get back for the end of that tournament and then obviously that was pretty heart wrenching the way that that all finished.” 

She returned to start the penultimate game, away to Ireland, winning 48-0. Against France in the record-breaking Grand Slam decider, Mo was back on the bench. “To get those three minutes [at the end] at Twickenham was pretty brutal,” she says. “That one crushed me quite hard, to be honest. 

“But now, there’s new coaching staff, the set-up’s changed and again, I want to play for England, it means so much to me to be out there with the girls. You put yourself back out there and you see what you can do, you kind of wipe away everything else, because that’s the goal, you know.”

Did she ever consider changing her game? “Not really, because I wasn’t lacking anything, if that makes sense. It wasn’t like, ‘your pass is too weak or your kicking games is rubbish, you’re running game’s rubbish’. 

“It was ‘you’re too instinctive’ and, for me, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want someone in my position that is. 

“I think it just made me want to get fitter, want to get faster, want to prove that I’ve still got it, if that makes sense.

“That was one of my worst rugby memories but after the disappointment, I was like, ‘right 2025, let’s have it’, I want that as a target. That is how I want to go out, I know it doesn’t al ways end up the way you want but that’s how I want to be remembered for my England career.

“Potentially, if I’d have gone to the World Cup, would I have retired? I don’t know; would I have had another two-year fight in me? I don’t know. But now it’s given me the drive, to be, ‘right, I want to go out on the home World Cup and give everything I’ve got to the game for another couple years’.”

Even at 34, Mo still firmly believes the best is yet to come. “I’ve always just wanted to be the best I can be, and I don’t feel like I’ve hit that yet,” she says. “I feel there’s still more to come, there’s more I’ve got to give. 

“We do this stuff, where it’s like, ‘what is your why?’ And a lot of people talk about their family and all this sort of stuff, and I’m so close with my family, I love them to pieces, but they’re not the reason I play. The reason I play is because I want to be the best I can be. “I would absolutely love to get to that World Cup and have the opportunity to go out fighting for the title.”

Story byAlex Mead

Pictures by  Danté Kim

This extract was taken from issue 24 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.