My Story: Natasha Hunt
Red Roses scrum half Natasha Hunt talks netball, knitting, nicknames, World Cup wins and scrunchies.
Most rugby players have fond memories of their first game but Natasha Hunt started out at one of England’s oldest grounds playing her first match.
Playing for Drybrook School in blue and white stripes, Hunt featured alongside future Red Roses international Ceri Large and her little sister Jess at Kingsholm, home of Gloucester Rugby. Her childhood was dominated by being active.
“I just remember I loved all sports,” said the 30-year-old. “It wasn’t necessarily rugby, it was anything I could get my hands on. I would always be nagging my dad to be out in the garden kicking a ball around with me.
“I was never a girl that loved to go and play My Little Pony or anything like that, I always had a ball in my hand.
“My mum used to joke that when we were allowed to go with friends on the bus into Gloucester, which was our biggest local city, I’d always come back with a different ball – it was a standing joke at the time.”
Although she took her first rugby steps in primary school, Hunt focused on netball until the age of 17 when she was training three or four times a week and even had an England trial.
When her height was cited as a reason for her lack of progression Hunt says she “lost the enjoyment in it all” and a PE teacher nudged her back towards rugby.
Hunt, who goes by the nickname Mo from when her baby sister struggled with her first name, says her family have been a key influence in her representing England, with her grandma adding her own unique support.
“So my grandma loves to knit,” said Hunt. “She doesn’t really get rugby. She supported my grandad all the time but she doesn’t really understand the rules so she’ll just sit there with her needles and just knit.
“She used to knit us these hats which started off as ‘Mo hats’ because my family rocked up to one of my first Under 20 games with these blue, red and white striped hats with Mo on them.
“It was really cute but also a bit embarrassing. The girls lapped it up. They loved it and then pretty much our whole squad ended up with a hat with their own name on. She has little stickers in what she knits which say hand knitted with love from Barbara Wright, which is just the cutest.”
On the field Hunt has continued to produce high-class performances since her Red Roses debut in 2011.
She started the 2014 Women’s Rugby World Cup final as England won, and started again in the same final three years later as New Zealand pipped them to the title. In sevens, she represented Team GB at the 2016 Rio Olympics, secured a bronze for England at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and then played in the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens before returning to 15s this year.
Her World Cup win five years ago saw her first club Drybrook RFC rename their gymnasium after her and fellow Forest of Dean resident Ceri Large who was also part of that squad.
Hunt, though, says another squad member provided the fondest memories from that tournament in France. “My roommate at the time was Kay Wilson. She was huge for my rugby career.
“We got capped together in 2011 and then stayed roomies until 2017 after the World Cup, flitted between sevens and XVs together and she was just one of the most chilled people I’ve ever met.
“We woke up in the morning and we were chanting ‘let’s go win a World Cup’ and we just stayed so relaxed all day. A large part of that was down to her.”
As we speak at England’s training base at Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, Hunt is sporting a Gloucester-Hartpury Women’s scrunchie, the club she captains in the Tyrrells Premier 15s. It has become her statement piece.
“It started because in the sevens loads of the girls were wearing them and it’s seen as a bit of a younger thing – the girls joked about the fact I was wearing a blue scrunchie and how it was bringing out my eyes.
“Then, when I came back to 15s, the older girls were absolutely rinsing me saying ‘what are you doing? You need to take that out, it’s not ok.’
“I thought I’m going to wear it even more now, so it became a bit of a thing. Now I just love it – I feel like it knocks a few years off me so I’m embracing it fully.”
Article first published on 12 November 2019
