Ilona Maher on joining Bristol: ‘I feel like the first day of school. I’m nervous. But this is what I love’ | Ilona Maher

The deal is signed, sealed and delivered. Ilona Maher will play in the Premiership Women’s Rugby and she will be wearing Bristol Bears colours after the club went above and beyond to make sure the Olympic medallist could play in England. The US international is a landmark signing in the PWR but she also says being the biggest name in rugby can add pressure on the pitch.

Maher went viral at the Tokyo Olympics and this year’s Paris Games, where she was a part of the first US team to win a medal in Sevens when they beat Australia in the bronze medal final. An appearance on Dancing with the Stars, in which she placed second with partner Alan Bersten, has added even more social media followers with a total of 4.6 million on Instagram and 3.3 million on TikTok. The 28-year-old spoke to a sports psychiatrist throughout the Olympics and says it may be something she continues to do when she moves to Bristol in the new year.

“Going into the Olympics I was like: ‘Maybe I can try and do what I did in Tokyo again and be as big as that,’” she tells the Guardian. “I knew I could do it but it was so cool the scale I did it to.

“It was then scary. Now I have three million people watching me. I have millions of people tuning in to see me play rugby. What if I knock the ball on? What if I miss a tackle and look like an idiot? It was important for me to not get carried away by that. That meant every night I was with our sport psych to do mindfulness to stay really present because I was nervous.

“I didn’t want people to think I wasn’t serious because I do social media or social media takes away my impact on the field. As a female athlete I would love to just focus on what I am doing on the field but if I want to live a comfortable life, if I want to make real money, I have to actually do more. Maybe that is a female thing, sometimes we have to do more. I wasn’t willing to give up something that could be so lucrative for me, I wanted to make sure I could do both.

“I think I should still connect with a sports psych because I think it will be like, I am coming to this and people are expecting things from me. Saying: ‘Oh it’s Ilona Maher, she’s coming to play rugby and it’s 15s.’”

Maher has met her Bristol teammates but will return to the US before Christmas. She will then return to the south-west of England in the new year with her first game potentially being against local rivals Gloucester-Hartpury on 4 January. But this signing almost did not come to fruition.

She contacted several clubs at the end of 2023 as she wanted to play in the English top-flight. Maher had it in mind to join a club after the 2024 Olympics had concluded. However, as she had not played 15s rugby since 2021 she was not eligible to play.

However, during her stint on Dancing with the Stars, Bristol got in touch and said they would put the work in to get Maher a visa so she could play for them. This included an appeals process, which the Rugby Football Union supported, and the club were successful.

It was then when reports emerged that Maher may be joining an English club that other sides started to contact the star.

She says: “All of a sudden I was getting all of these calls and emails from people saying: ‘We’re hearing you might be eligible to play, you want to come for us?’ OK well I did want to play for you, I did want to do this. I had a lot of other teams calling to come play. I think I stood by Bristol because they did this work and I wanted to stick with them.”

Maher has chatted to Bristol’s head coach, Dave Ward, about what position she will be playing in the team. Before signing she had mentioned a desire to try a position among the forwards.

“I think we will see wing, some centre,” she says. “Then I would love to, we were just talking about it, when we can try in the forwards and see if there is an opportunity sometime to go to eight or flanker.

“I have never been lifted before because in sevens I am always the biggest girl so I think this is a great time to learn those other skills, you wouldn’t get the opportunity to [in sevens].”

One of the biggest reasons Maher wanted to ply her trade in the 15s game once again is that the 2025 Rugby World Cup which is being held in England. The US have qualified for the tournament and have been drawn against England, Australia and Samoa in the pool stage.

Maher, who attended the 2021 World Cup which was held in New Zealand, says: “I want to put myself in the best position to hopefully be selected for the World Cup.

“I think there are many reasons. I really love what the PWR is doing and I think I love their branding, I think that’s really cool. I have been in the USA sevens for six years now. So I wanted to try something different, go and live somewhere else, meet new people. I do feel like the first day of school, I am nervous, I don’t know everybody. It is a stressful thing and it is outside of my comfort zone but I think this is exactly what I love to do and I like to challenge myself in this way.”

Her contract with Bristol runs until the end of the season, which culminates in the final on 16 March, but this club spell may not be the last in 15s before she returns to the sevens game. She said of her future plans: “I think it is to see how it goes right now. Who knows how this goes? What other opportunities pop up?

“I would love to go back to sevens because a home Olympics would be amazing to play in 2028. That is the plan but also I have been doing sevens for six years and I have literally done it since I got out of college. So I want to see what else and build a little bit now.”

Premiership Women’s Rugby will most definitely want Maher to stay in the league beyond this season. Her signature is a watershed moment and is among one of the most shrewd signings in the sport’s history.