Claudia MacDonald completes an astonishing comeback when the Women’s World Cup begins tomorrow - and admits even she can hardly believe it.
As recently as June the Exeter star feared she would never play again due to a neck injury. Warned that surgery was too big a risk, she got herself a job outside of rugby.
In New Zealand, where tournament favourites England launch their glory bid against Fiji, the 26-year old starts on the wing for the world’s top-ranked side.
“Rewind the clock back a couple of months and this is not something I expected,” she said. “I was wondering if I’d play again.”
For five months after her head was compressed against her chest in a training session, leaving her with one acute prolapsed disc and another bulging, MacDonald thought her career was at an end.
Medical advice was split between surgery, which came with considerable risk, and leaving the neck to heal of its own accord.
“My dad would say, ‘Claud, I know you love rugby, but..’” she said. "There was always that ‘but’.
“Then I spoke to a surgeon who said, ‘If you were my daughter I wouldn’t encourage you to get the surgery’. As a piece of professional advice that was hard to ignore.”
Spring turned to summer and early one morning, soon after she had lined up a job as a sustainability consultant, MacDonald’s phone rang as she lay in bed. It was the England doctor.
“He said he had some really positive news for me,” she recalled. “That the latest scan showed there was no reason I can’t return to contact sport.
“I had hoped for a miracle but wasn’t expecting one at all. I half screamed, half cried. That was a pretty amazing day.”
At Eden Park in Auckland, where Rita Ora headlines the opening day and organisers hope for a near 47,000 capacity crowd, MacDonald will run out alongside Abby Dow.
The Wasps wing broke her leg in April and, like MacDonald, was given no chance of making the World Cup.
The plan is to bring her off the bench against World Cup rookies Fiji, a side whose game, according to England boss Simon Middleton, is “based around a bit of carnage, I’d imagine”.
The Islanders are 40/1 underdogs against opponents, unbeaten since 2019, who are 25 successive wins into a world record run.
That sequence contains two huge wins last year over hosts New Zealand, winners of five of the last six World Cups, and no fewer than eight over third favourites France.
Little wonder Middleton, 56, says he will consider it a failure if England fail to add to their one tournament win back in 2014.
England: Kildunne; Thompson, Scarratt, Rowland, MacDonald; Harrison, Infante; Cornborough, Cokayne, Bern, Aldcroft, Ward, Matthews, Kabeya, Hunter (capt).
Replacements: Powell, Botterman, Muir, O'Donnell, Cleall, L Packer, Aitchison, Dow.
Fiji: Radiniyavuni; Nakoci, Laqeretabua, Donu, Naikore; Rokouono, Cavuru; Verebalavu, Matarugu, Rasolea, Serevi, Leweniqila (capt), Waisega, Adivitaloga, Naisewa.
