You've got to look after your brain - Merchant

Former England and Worcester wing Kat Merchant wants women's rugby to learn lessons from the men's game to improve player safety.

Merchant won the World Cup in 2014 but retired on medical advice that year aged 28 after suffering 11 confirmed concussions.

Now 40 and working as a personal trainer, she is helping educate the next generation of players.

"I just hope we can learn from the men's game and put that support into the women's game," she told Ben Youngs Investigates: How Safe is Rugby.

"I hope lessons are learned. You've got to look after your brain, you only get one of them and you have to be smart with that.

"Rugby is amazing but so is the rest of your life."

Merchant is not part of the current legal action being brought against the sport's authorities, including the RFU but is asking for better support for players both during and after their playing career.

"What I want to do is help to educate players so they know what concussions look like and how to still play rugby but be safe," she said.

"I don't have kids but if I did, I would want them to play rugby, if they wanted to. But I'd want it to be in as safe an environment as possible."

Marchant scored 44 tries in 58 appearances for England and helped them to win seven consecutive Six Nations Grand Slams before the World Cup triumph.

Having taken up rugby aged 14, she suffered her first serious concussion two years later before 10 more followed during her career.

"They got significantly worse," she said.

"In 2013, I got knocked out and had a seizure on the pitch. That was a real moment for me that I was realistically going to have to retire with the amount I'd had.

"I'd had a year of really going to some dark places.

"Light felt so bright, noise felt so loud and I physically sat in my own house cowering at noises - it really was just awful."

Governing body World Rugby said in 2023 there had not been enough research on concussion in the women's game and has since introduced a number of initiatives including the use of data gathered from smart mouthguards and saliva tests.