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Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer
BRISTOL, England — Ilona Maher admitted she was filled with nerves ahead of her Bristol Bears debut but believes she has taken a step forward in adjusting to the 15s format of rugby as she played 20 minutes in the Bears’ 40-17 defeat to Gloucester-Hartpury in front of a record crowd at Ashton Gate on Sunday.
Maher, who won Olympic bronze in the women’s sevens with the U.S., is targeting a spot in the USA Eagles squad for the 2025 Rugby World Cup. To help that goal as she swaps the short-form sevens format of the sport for 15s, Maher has signed a three-month deal with Bristol where she aims to impress ahead of the World Cup in England later this year.
If Bristol fall short of making the playoffs in Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), then she has only got six matches to impress. The first of those came on Sunday as she got her first experience of PWR as a 60th-minute substitute for Reneeqa Bonner. But her time on the ball was limited, as Bristol struggled to keep pace with the back-to-back PWR winners.
“I was definitely very nervous,” Maher said. “I think the coach [Dave Ward] was like, ‘okay, you’re going to go on after 60 minutes.’ I was like, ‘okay, we sure?’ I just wanted to do my teammates proud and show that I deserved to be out there.
“But once I did get on the field, I just felt like, this is rugby. It’s something I’ve been doing for the past 10 years now. It’s something that’s in my blood. So I felt really confident when I got there, but also to my teammates who are constantly talking to me, like Jazz Joyce constantly telling me what she needs. It makes me feel I can play to the best of my ability. Now, as I get more comfortable, I think I’ll be in more moments and be prepared to put myself into more spaces.”
Maher’s last rugby action was to help the U.S. secure their first ever medal in rugby at the Olympics back in August. During Paris 2024 she provided behind-the-scenes access in the Olympic village and grew her social media following, which stands at around 8.1 million across her various platforms, establishing herself as by far the most-followed rugby union player in the world.
Since the end of the Olympics, Maher’s life has been a whirlwind. She announced several new brand partnerships while her merchandise displays her mantra “beauty, beast, brains.” She was the cover star for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition in October and finished second on “Dancing with the Stars” at the end of November.
Maher was welcomed to Bristol at the start of December, announced to the crowd at the Bristol Bears men’s team’s match against Leinster, greeting them with a royal wave.
“She’s given everyone a massive lift,” Holly Aitchison, the Bristol and England fly-half said at the time. “Anyone with that kind of profile is going to put eyes on the game, which can only be a good thing for us.”
Maher then returned to the U.S. to fulfil various commercial and TV duties and arrived back at her temporary home at the start of 2025. Her star power meant Bristol Bears received unprecedented demand for tickets ahead of Sunday’s match. They usually play at Shaftesbury Park — a ground with a capacity of 2,000 of which 250 is seated — but they moved it to Ashton Gate, the 27,000 strong stadium, in anticipation of Maher’s debut.
Maher last played the XV-a-side format of the sport in 2021, but the star power was evident at Ashton Gate: camera crews following her every movement, supporters proudly displaying her name on the back of her shirts, and an attendance of 9,240 all eager to catch a glimpse of a rugby superstar.
“Sevens is a battle, I feel like 15s is sometimes like a war,” Maher said afterwards. “There are so many moments. It was tough out there. For me, I was just trying to watch and understand, thinking, what do I need to do when I get in? And I think each game I’m just gonna learn more and more. And you do learn a lot by losing, but it also puts a fire under you for the next game.”
Pre-kick-off, and even during the early stages of the game, the cameras were trained just as much on Maher as the on-field action. Though she started on the bench, there was the inevitable subplot of the crowd, and sport, waiting for her introduction.
Her positional versatility meant she could have featured potentially in the back-row, in the midfield and out wide on the wing. In the end, Bristol and Maher opted for the latter option, as she started her short spell at the Bears on the right wing. But in her 20-minute cameo, she was far more busy in defence than with ball in hand, as Gloucester-Hartpury ended up comfortable victors.
“[My] instincts are the same, but it’s more like the structure that you really have to understand as the moving parts are just so different,” Maher said.
“In Sevens there are a lot of 1v1s. I get past this person, I’m pretty home free. In fifteens there’s one person running here, you’re running behind, you have three people in front of you, you’re thinking, is that the best option or should we go out the back? So there’s so much, so many more moving parts that I have to still kind of understand and learn.”
Maher signed autographs and took photographs with the fans inside the stadium for over an hour after full-time. It was a record attendance for a Bristol Bears’ women’s home match, and Maher hopes her fame and fan base will hope grow the game.
“It’s really important for me to connect with them — they’re not just the next generation of rugby players but the next generation of fans. What’s cool was that there were a lot of women out there. In men’s sports, you have a lot of male fans — especially in rugby — it’s a boy’s club. You have a lot of old men going to their team’s game. Can we now get more women buying our jerseys and coming to our games?
“Women have power, women have influence and they’re a good fanbase to have.”