Emma Raducanu Visits England Training Camp Before Their All Blacks Meeting

England’s preparations for their crunch conflict pinch nan All Blacks connected Saturday person been boosted by immoderate words of contented from nan erstwhile US Open tennis champion Emma Raducanu, who visited their Bagshot training guidelines connected Tuesday.

Raducanu took to nan training section pinch Steve Borthwick’s squad, taking portion successful lineout believe and kicking drills pinch Marcus Smith earlier sharing insights pinch nan captain, Maro Itoje. Borthwick besides invited nan Brighton manager, Fabian Hürzeler, to reside nan squad this week.

Eddie Jones was vilified successful 2021 erstwhile he appeared to criticise nan British No 1 women’s tennis player, utilizing nan 22-year-old to exemplify nan pitfalls of off-field distractions erstwhile saying: “There’s a logic why nan young woman who won nan US Open hasn’t done truthful good afterwards.” As revealed by nan Guardian, Raducanu past skipped an invitation from nan Rugby Football Union to be a lucifer astatine Twickenham later that autumn.

According to Borthwick, however, Raducanu was happy to stock her expertise pinch his squad earlier they bid for a first Twickenham triumph against nan All Blacks successful 13 years.

“It’s conscionable awesome having people, elite sportspeople travel and sojourn us,” Borthwick said. “Emma was talking to nan players and sharing her experiences astir preparing for nan elite level of competition, which is terrific. People for illustration her are ever very invited because we study a batch and nan players bask learning from others’ experience.”

Emma Raducanu and Maro Itoje astatine Pennyhill Park. ‘People for illustration her are invited because we study a lot,’ said Steve Borthwick. Photograph: Dan Mullan/RFU/The RFU Collection/Getty Images

Fin Baxter, who starts astatine loosehead connected Saturday, was besides glowing successful his endorsement of Raducanu’s insight. He said: “She watched training coming and past we did a fewer bits after. I deliberation she did a spot of kicking pinch Marcus. Maro was chatting to her and we were each drifting off, letting 2 large dogs of their sports talk.

“The magnitude of unit that she has to spell under, because of really successful she is, is decidedly thing we tin each study from.”