By PAUL REES

When Sarah Hunter last week announced that she would be retiring after Sunday’s Six Nations clash between England and Scotland in her native north-east, it made national news and the No 8 was swamped by interview requests ahead of her record 141st and final cap at a sell-out Kingston Park.
It was a marked contrast to the time when she played her first international in 2007 at Old Albanians in front of a couple of hundred spectators, most of whom were family members. The women’s union was then separate from the RFU and the players did not sport the Red Rose on their jerseys.
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