The rugby sevens star, social media influencer and reality TV competitor Ilona Maher is included in the US Eagles squad for four 15-a-side games this spring, as her quest for a place at the World Cup later this year moves on from a successful stint with Bristol Bears in England.
Listed as a center, having played wing for Bristol, Maher is set to “return to the USA Rugby 15s pitch for the first time since 2021, where she debuted with two caps during the Pacific Four Series”, USA Rugby said in announcing its squad for games against Japan and, in this year’s Pacific Four, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Sione Fukofuka, the Eagles head coach, said: “We have been tracking our players either in their team environments in Premiership Women’s Rugby [PWR, in England] or here in the US preparing with their Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) teams … We have real competition for positions and a strong core playing group with some x-factor.”
Maher’s x-factor is well known. Now 28, the native Vermonter shone at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut then became a mainstay of the US women’s sevens team that won spectacular bronze at the Olympic Games in Paris last year.
As one of the most-followed athletes in all world sports, post-Paris successes included a Sports Illustrated photoshoot, an endorsement (of Kamala Harris) in the US election, and a second-placed finish on Dancing with the Stars, ABC’s hit reality show.
Juggling such commitments with an ambition to play in the 15-a-side World Cup in England in August, Maher signed a short-term deal with Bristol that ended with defeat by Gloucester-Hartpury in the PWR semi-final. Such has been Maher’s impact, the Daily Telegraph last week dubbed her “Rugby’s biggest star since Jonah Lomu”, the giant New Zealand wing who vied with Nelson Mandela to be the face of the 1995 World Cup in South Africa and died in 2015.
“At times I feel like I’m being wrung dry, because rugby is trying to get as much out of me as possible,” Maher told the Telegraph, while accepting “personalised boots encrusted with rhinestones” at Adidas headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. “I love it, but … sometimes I get tired. I’m like, ‘Man, we got to have more faces of rugby.’
“… People have been calling me the ‘superstar of rugby’. I love that, I think that’s awesome, but we need to have more superstars coming up because we want people to come to the games. To be the face of a sport that is a historically male sport is also really cool, and helping it to grow in the women’s sphere.”
Back on US soil, Maher has launched a podcast, presented with her sisters Olivia and Adrianna and called House of Maher. This week’s episode featured discussions of how Ilona lost her virginity, her thoughts on body positivity and the challenges of pursuing a World Cup place while meeting the demands of celebrity.
“It’s a weird battle I have to deal with,” Maher said. “It’s either play rugby or do things outside that would make me so much more money … if I could I would just play rugby … you have to do it for passion. It is hard. I’m putting my body on the line for something that is giving me a lot, but at times I feel like I’m giving it much more. I’m going out there everyday with the possibility of getting an injury … and I’m like, ‘Gosh why am I doing this to myself?’”
Most women’s players play semi-professionally at best, in the US in WER, which played its first games last weekend.
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“A lot of my teammates they’re putting their whole bodies on the line for very little reward,” Maher said. “A lot of them aren’t getting paid, if they’re getting paid it’s very little, a lot of them are working full time jobs … so we’re in rugby doing this for passion but at what time can it be as a career?”
Maher and the rest of a US squad led for a seventh season by the back-rower Kate Zackary will face Japan in Los Angeles on 26 April and Canada in Kansas City on 2 May.
After that, the Wallaroos await in Canberra on 16 May and the mighty Black Ferns in Auckland seven days later. Tickets for the games on US soil go on sale on Friday. Another home game follows later in the summer, against Fiji in Washington DC on 19 July, as part of a double-header with the US men versus England.
Fukofuka said the Eagles would look to “compete for results and learn to take opportunities in key moments. This will provide a strong platform for the Rugby World Cup by allowing us to implement our game model, develop combinations and create an environment where we have the ability to change the game, on and off the field.”