Emily Scarratt: ‘I could tell it was bad by the way the other girls reacted’

Emily Scarratt’s face ignites with a smile midway through our video call. She rummages in her pocket, whips out her phone and holds it up towards the camera on her laptop. I can’t help but recoil at the gruesome sight on my screen.

“It’s a bit sadistic in a way”, she says with a hearty laugh, satisfied that she has evoked the reaction she was after. “Laughing helps normalise what happened.”

What happened was a compound fracture and dislocation of her left ankle in September last year. Three minutes into the opening game of the Premier 15s season, Scarratt was defending the line for Loughborough Lightning against Harlequins. Having made a tackle near the breakdown, both teams committed extra bodies to the point of contact. Her leg got caught underneath her body and was compressed at an awkward angle. The result, which she exhibits to anyone with the stomach to see it, was her bone piercing her skin with her foot pointing in an unexpected direction.

“I knew I was in trouble the moment it happened,” she says. “I could tell it was bad by the way all the other girls reacted. Some had their mouths open. Some couldn’t look at all. I knew I’d be spending a good amount of time off the field.”

After surgery, Scarratt was sidelined for more than five months. Her foot was in a cast for six weeks and an orthopaedic boot for another five. To relieve the discomfort caused by the constant use of crutches, she wheeled herself around on a knee scooter which kept her injured leg suspended.

“It was difficult,” she says. “It was especially hard to take because it was so early in the season. I’d hardly played. But I just had to accept it. I couldn’t get frustrated. I let myself enjoy the break.”

She took up residence on her family’s beef and