Women’s Rugby World Cup: Abi Burton’s journey from coma to World Cup

After a year’s intensive rehabilitation, she signed for Premiership Women’s Rugby side Trailfinders Women in 2023 and made the Great Britain Sevens team for Paris the following summer.

Burton was called into John Mitchell’s squad for this year’s Six Nations and scored two tries off the bench on her debut against Wales.

She did not cross against in the 92-3 win over Samoa on Saturday, but Burton knows not all successes show up on the scoresheet.

“I saw my grandparents, mum and dad, my brother in the crowd during the anthems,” she remembers.

“It was just super, super special. They were all emotional as well.

“They went through hell and back over the past couple of years and the fact that we get to come out the end of it and mum and dad can see that I’m thriving, my two younger brothers are thriving as well – we just want to experience those family moments together.”

There were other well-wishers in the crowd. One of the Team GB doctors was also at Franklin’s Gardens.

As they met after the game, she pulled up a photo on her phone for Burton.

“It was three years ago nearly to the day that she had visited me in hospital,” says Burton.

“I try not to think about the journey too much, to just get my head in the rugby, but it was like ‘woah, that actually did happen.'”

Burton has won battles far more significant than any match she will play in the next four weeks.