American rugby famous person Ilona Maher is in line to make her Bristol Bears debut on Sunday having been named on the bench for his or her match in opposition to Gloucester-Hartpury at Ashton Gate.
Maher’s transfer to Bristol on a three-month deal was introduced in December as she seeks to drive her means into rivalry for the USA Eagles on the 2025 Ladies’s Rugby World Cup.
Having already helped information the U.S. sevens aspect to bronze at Paris 2024, Sunday’s match sees Maher take her first steps in transferring from the brief type of the game to XV’s forward of this 12 months’s World Cup.
Maher solely arrived in Bristol on Dec. 31 and skilled on New 12 months’s Day. Her international recognition, with a social media following exceeding eight million individuals throughout her totally different platforms, noticed Bristol transfer Sunday’s match in opposition to Gloucester-Hartpury from their standard Shaftesbury Park dwelling to a much bigger stadium on the 27,000-capacity Ashton Gate due to “unprecedented demand,” in response to the Bears.
An attendance of almost 10,000 is predicted on Sunday.
This shall be Maher’s first foray in rugby since ending second on Dancing With The Stars. It has been fairly the introduction to life at Bristol amid a flurry of media curiosity, with Bristol Bears’ coach Dave Ward conceding this week that Maher wasn’t “fairly herself but” as she makes the adjustment to life within the UK and XV’s and manages a “little little bit of an sickness.”
Regardless, she has impressed already at Bristol, coaching on New 12 months’s Day when the remainder of the squad had the time without work, and, as Ward stated, proving how she “needs to hit the bottom operating.”
Maher final performed the XV-a-side format of the game in 2021 however on Sunday she’s going to line up within the PWR.
Gloucester-Hartpury are third within the desk with 38 factors from 10 matches, whereas the Bears have performed a sport fewer, and lie in fifth, with 31 factors from 9 video games.
“With a crowd of almost 8,000 anticipated at Ashton Gate on Sunday, it is a massively thrilling event and we’re hoping to provide them one thing to cheer about,” Ward stated.
“We perceive the significance of the sport within the context of our season, and the standard of the reigning champions, however we head into the sport with confidence and relishing the event and the problem.”
