Advertisement

Claudia MacDonald interview: Neck injury almost ended my career but now I’m braver than ever

Claudia MacDonald - Claudia MacDonald interview: Neck injury almost ended my career but now I’m braver than ever - Getty Images/Steve Bardens
Claudia MacDonald - Claudia MacDonald interview: Neck injury almost ended my career but now I’m braver than ever - Getty Images/Steve Bardens

Last June, Claudia MacDonald was a week away from starting a new job in sustainability consulting, and was scouring charity shops in Richmond for appropriate workwear.

The England winger had spent last year’s Women’s Six Nations watching matches at the pub, applying for jobs and preparing for a life without rugby. She had an acute prolapsed disc and another bulging disc in her neck, following an accident in training the previous autumn. Best-case scenario, she would recover within 18 months, though the doctors also said she may never get back to playing rugby.

But just as soon as she had filled her wardrobe with office-appropriate clothes and shoved her rugby kit to the back of the cupboard, the phone rang. Her life was turned on its head again: the doctors gave her the all clear to play.

“It was all very funny timing really, because I literally had just accepted the job,” she says. “For me, it was putting a line in the sand, saying maybe rugby will happen in the future, but certainly not right now. That was me moving forward, getting excited about something else. I even put my rugby kit away, hid it from view, but suddenly it was on the cards again.”

Not only was it on the cards, but MacDonald spent the autumn in New Zealand starting for England at the World Cup. Fast-forward to today, and she speaks to Telegraph Sport from the England camp, fresh from scoring two tries and earning her 25th cap in their Six Nations first-round rout of Scotland.

Now that she is a regular starter again, what became of her office job attire? “A lot of it went back to charity shops,” MacDonald says, grinning from ear to ear. “Thankfully, my employers were incredible with the whole thing too. Within seconds of me sitting down they said, ‘I really hope this is positive news for you and bad news for us’. They were really chuffed for me.”

MacDonald has just finished a weights session, a few days on from England’s win at Kingston Park, but is radiating energy. She has a permanent, infectious smile planted on her face as she chats about the joy of being back on the pitch for England.

There were moments in New Zealand, during England’s run to their heart-breaking second-place finish at the World Cup, where she forgot about her injury woes and how unlikely it was that she would even be there. “I had to check myself and say, ‘No, this is pretty cool you’ve got this far, appreciate this and whatever else happens is a bonus’.”

Even with that new appreciation, considering the severity of her injury, does she feel any fear on the pitch too? She shakes her head. “There’s almost a part of me that is less scared than before, because I know that there is something outside of rugby,” MacDonald, 27, says. “I’ve gone to that dark place, you’re unexpectedly saying goodbye to rugby. I was about to prepare for a World Cup and Six Nations and then it all got taken away. There were a couple of really dark months, but at the end there was excitement about the next part of my journey.

“I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity I had [outside of rugby]. I think there’s a huge amount of appreciation now of how special it is to be out on the pitch. I want to keep doing it for as long as I possibly can. But I also know that, on the other side, it’s not so bad either.”

Reigning champions England are firm favourites for the Six Nations title this season too, and play Italy on Sunday in the second round. They will do it without former captain Sarah Hunter, who retired last weekend. Her co-captain Marlie Packer takes her place as skipper, and MacDonald says this marks a fresh slate for the team with another “natural born leader” at the helm.

As for MacDonald’s position on the team, she remains adaptable. She began her rugby career as a winger, when she first started playing competitively at Durham University, aged 19, while studying for an economics degree.

Then MacDonald played four years as scrum-half at Wasps, but England head coach Simon Middleton has long preferred her in the role of winger. She has been a winger at Exeter Chiefs this season too, so when the question inevitably comes up on which position she prefers, she is not surprised.

“I always get asked this. I loved playing scrum-half, I found it very challenging and very tactical, and you’re incredibly involved with everything. But when I played scrum-half I was always looking for opportunities to run with the ball in hand. That’s the winger part of me, so I’ve loved my return to the wing. I’m happy for the time being.

“As a winger, we showed a more expansive game at the weekend – we want to keep building on that. We’ve still got so much power up front that we can go to, if and when we need to. It’s about testing ourselves again against Italy.”