Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), England’s elite league for women’s 15-a-side rugby union, is still semi-professional.
A large number of the players who will be representing England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Italy in the upcoming Women’s Six Nations hail from PWR teams.
What’s more, a lot of the other PWR athletes, the ones who do not play international rugby, have other jobs. There is no title sponsor for the league yet and there will be no prize money to offer the champions of this month’s PWR final.
But for the past three months, the league has boasted the superstar of world rugby.
Ilona Maher is the self-made megastar with more followers (8.4million) across Instagram and TikTok than any other rugby player in the world. The 28-year-old from Burlington, Vermont, gets millions of views on videos that show off her goofy personality as well as how she advocates body-positive messages for women and girls.
Since December, when it was announced she was joining Bristol Bears on a three-month deal, Maher, a rugby sevens bronze medallist from the Paris Olympics, has been proudly waving the PWR flag in the face of a captivated global audience she has built from being herself.
With Bristol’s 36-20 defeat to Gloucester-Hartpury on Sunday in the PWR semi-finals, where Maher…
