Ilona Maher: Bristol Bears move and TikTok viral hit
Published 6 December 2024
Ilona Maher is not the best rugby player in the world.
She is big, strong and fast, with deceptively good hands. But she is not, by her own admission, the best.
"I'm amazing at rugby, but realistically I'm maybe not the best at it, which is fine," she told Rugby Union Weekly.
"There are so many great athletes like Portia Woodman [New Zealand's two-time Olympic gold winner] and Maddi Levi [Australia's World Sevens Player of the Year].
"But I have something else I can bring, which is personality."
That "something else" is something else.
Because Maher is a social media Jonah Lomu. Her numbers accelerate upwards, with eight million followers and counting clinging to her shirttails.
She is rugby's great unicorn.
While the sport's suits warn gravely about demographic collapse and the need to connect with a younger audience, a 28-year-old sevens player from a nation where rugby is barely a blip on the radar has apparently cracked it.
She is the biggest rugby player ever, of either gender, online, thanks to funny, sassy posts advocating for femininity in all forms, body positivity and Olympic village flirting.
She has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and profiled by Forbes.
In the past few months, she has been taking part in Dancing with the Stars, finishing second.
Casting the US version of Strictly Come Dancing isn't the bargain-bin, back-end-of-the alphabet rummage of some other countries either.
On that side of the Atlantic, the A-list hit the floor. In previous series, boxing legends Evander Holyfield and Floyd Mayweather have danced (not together), NFL hall of famer Jerry Rice did a cha-cha-cha and World Cup winner Hope Solo was paired up and voted off.
This year was Maher's turn.
And next year, it is England's turn.
In January Maher will start a three-month contract with Bristol Bears in Premiership Women's Rugby.