'It came at a really good time' - Sarah McKenna on coaching transition

Timing is everything in sport, just ask Sarah McKenna, whose transition from professional player to elite coach has been aided in part by a degree of serendipity.

It is only 12 months since McKenna was part of a Red Roses squad who powered their way to another Women’s Six Nations Grand Slam to bring the curtain down on the Simon Middleton era in style.

McKenna had been a near-constant presence in the England squad under Middleton, when fit, but with her playing time increasingly limited and her mid-30s on the horizon, she understood change was not only coming for her coach.

That is why when the phone call arrived last year to deliver the news that her Red Roses contract was not being renewed, it was not unexpected. The only question on her mind: what’s next?

“Being self-aware around my age and the next cycle, I wasn't on the right side of selection anymore,” McKenna tells RugbyPass, “I think I could predict that it was coming.”

Fortunately, she did not need to wait long for an answer to her personal conundrum.

In August, McKenna noticed a missed call from England Women’s U20 head coach LJ Lewis, who it transpired had got in touch to offer her an assistant coach role.

“I had previously been into 20s camps when Amy Turner was head coach and then worked again with LJ here, just invited in as someone who was a Red Roses player to help and assist, and that was great,” McKenna says.

“You’d have to ask LJ what it was that led to her picking up the phone to me but when I saw her on a missed call, I did think, ‘Could this be that call?’

“I had no inkling of it beforehand, so it was a nice surprise when we had that conversation, and it probably was about that time I suppose, once I’d been able to have a little bit of a break after the Red Roses stuff and think about what I wanted.

“It came at a really good time because it was the time I was starting to think, ‘OK, I need to get into something now’.”

In truth, McKenna had taken the first step on the road towards coaching more than half a decade earlier, albeit almost by accident, with her local club Old Albanian Saints.

“I was never very purposeful about being a coach there, it just happened,” she admits.

“It was when I didn’t get that Red Roses contract, it was like, well, what’s next in my career? I did think, ‘actually, it is something I want to pursue more’, so I could get stuck in, and I suppose delve more into what it’s really about.”

Another crucial juncture came during Women’s Rugby World Cup 2021 in New Zealand.

McKenna was naturally disappointed not to see more action on the pitch – her only appearance came as part of a heavily rotated side against South Africa – but running water in the final, and being hooked up to the coaches’ box, gave her a unique insight.

“I had an earpiece in and was able to hear and pass on messages from the coaches, so I got that experience from a totally different lens,” she explains.

“Again, it's probably at that point where some of those thoughts about, you know, ‘I'd like to go into coaching’, started.

“Who gets to do that? Being on a mic listening to what the coaches are saying and during a World Cup final [when] you've just had a red card and you're trying to problem solve that. And you've just had a concussion and you've got a player off for an HIA … wow! Incredible.”

When McKenna speaks to RugbyPass, she has recently returned from North America where she spent two weeks fully embedded in the Great Britain women’s sevens set-up as part of the Gallagher High Performance Academy.

One of ten female coaches invited onto their country’s coaching staff for the HSBC SVNS tournaments in Vancouver and Los Angeles, McKenna also missed the call from Great Britain head coach Ciaran Beattie delivering the good news.

But it was a trip that has clearly energised the Saracens stalwart. “I’m so grateful that that phone call was made to me because the experience as a coach was invaluable,” she says.

“Probably more than invaluable, a bit life-changing in terms of my coaching, the thought it provoked and some of the improvements I’ve made and what I’ve learnt.

“It’s been amazing, I was lucky enough to come straight back from LA and put some of those things into practice straight away, which I think is one of the best things you can do.

“You can go to these things; you can always pick up and put down as much as you want. But I was able to pick up so much and then put it into practice straight away.

“So, I've been able to sort of compound some of my learnings immediately. I’m just feeling on such a high after that experience and just really excited to try and continue that and keep improving.”

McKenna is grateful for the generosity of Beattie and his staff in Vancouver and LA, but she was also exposed to the reality of why a programme such as the High Performance Academy – a World Rugby initiative to help increase the number of female coaches in the elite game – is needed.

“On the World Series itself, there were very few women on those coaching teams,” she adds.

“So, it was evident that there's a gap in that space. But it was just great to see, you know, that there's potential and there's people coming through and really capable people.”

It is fitting that sevens should be playing a pivotal role in McKenna’s coaching education given the success she enjoyed, and enjoyment she derived, from playing the shorter format.

McKenna admits that “nothing came close” to playing at Women’s RWC 2021 yet some of her fondest memories as a player came from her time as part of the England sevens squad.

“I made so many friends, lifelong friends, incredible memories, incredible experiences that you wouldn't believe and [were] just so unique,” McKenna says.

“It's been incredible being all over the world. I’ve got a massive smile on my face, even just thinking about it now and I just feel incredibly grateful for the career I had.

“Some of the travelling with sevens was pretty special. I think especially around that 2015 year when I was in that core sevens group, flying around the world to some pretty odd places at times.

“I suppose it's not really like the flashy things that you remember. It's not being in Dubai next to the Burj Khalifa taking a photo.

“It's probably just the really obscure moments when someone's done something really stupid in the corridor. And that just makes you just think and laugh.

“Or going into someone's room and turning their room over, just thinking you were so funny.

“I mean, it's silly but it's probably not those posed moments where you're in those pictures. It's probably the times that you don't have the camera out.”

McKenna’s penchant for practical jokes has led to some confusion now she is coaching several players with England’s U20s who she shares a changing room with at Saracens.

“As a player, I am a little bit different to how I have to be as a coach,” she admits. “So, I think they turn up to camp here and they’re a little bit like, ‘Who are you going to be today?’”

Don’t expect her to change too much, though. McKenna’s coaching philosophy is centred on maximising opportunities through expression and enabling her players “to have every confidence to have fun”.

There were signs during England Women’s U20’s 99-5 victory against the Army in Havant last month that McKenna is getting that balancing act just right.