Ilona Maher’s Bristol bow expected to double record crowd for women’s side
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Presence of the most followed rugby player on the planet will attract over 8,000 fans to Ashton Gate on Sunday. Making a debut for a new club is a day every player will remember in their career but not everyone’s first game will be a landmark moment for an entire league and break a record before the player has even stepped on the pitch. That is the reality for Ilona Maher as the USA international prepares to play her first game for Bristol on Sunday as she starts from the bench against Gloucester-Hartpury in Premiership Women’s Rugby.
Maher, who is the most followed rugby player on the planet with more than eight million followers across multiple social media platforms, signed for the club last month to become the league’s biggest signing. She has made the move to 15s rugby from sevens in a bid to make the USA squad for the Rugby World Cup, taking place in England later this year.
The 28-year-old’s signing resulted in soaring ticket demand for the match against the defending champions, so much so that the fixture was moved from the side’s Shaftesbury Park to Bristol City’s Ashton Gate. The West Country side have now sold more than 8,000 tickets which will see the club’s record PWR crowd – 4,101 for a match against Harlequins – almost double. Maher, who in Paris was part of the first USA team to claim a medal in sevens rugby at an Olympics and went on to become the runner-up on Dancing with the Stars, the American equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing, spoke recently about the prospect of making her debut in the derby: “That would be so cool.
