{"id":36850,"date":"2025-01-06T03:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36850"},"modified":"2025-01-06T02:48:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T08:48:37","slug":"team-usa-rugby-star-ilona-maher-makes-her-bristol-bears-debut-in-front-of-record-home-crowd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36850","title":{"rendered":"Team USA rugby star Ilona Maher makes her Bristol Bears debut in front of record home crowd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BRISTOL, England \u2014 U.S. rugby star Ilona Maher<\/a> made her debut for the Bristol Bears women\u2019s team<\/a> in front of a record home crowd of 9,240 fans on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Maher, \u201cthe most followed rugby player on the planet<\/a>,\u201d could not prevent Bristol from losing 40-17 to defending champion Gloucester-Hartpury in a Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She came on as a substitute in the 61st minute at Ashton Gate with Bristol trailing 28-10. Maher made her presence felt in a couple of rucks and looked for work off the wing but could make little impact to the overall picture in her 20 minutes on the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The previous attendance record for a Bristol women\u2019s home match was 4,101 against Harlequins in May 2022. Such was the anticipation surrounding Maher\u2019s debut that Bristol relocated the match from a smaller venue to Ashton Gate to satisfy demand for seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 28-year-old Maher, who helped lead the U.S. to the bronze medal in rugby sevens<\/a> at the Paris Games, has signed a three-month contract with Bristol in southwestern England. She had begun training with Bristol in December when the team announced the signing before going back to the United States for the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maher has more than 8 million followers combined on Instagram and TikTok. She was a runner-up on the \u201cDancing With The Stars\u201d TV show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Vermont native is returning to the 15-a-side game in hopes of boosting her chances of making the U.S. team for the 2025 Rugby World Cup<\/a> in England. She can play at wing or center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bristol also said the attendance was a record for a stand-alone game in the Premiership. League-leading Harlequins said they set a women\u2019s club rugby record for attendance on Dec. 28 when 18,055 fans watched the team beat Leicester Tigers 42-17 at Twickenham Stadium. That was not a stand-alone match; it was part of a doubleheader with the Harlequins men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRISTOL, England \u2014 U.S. rugby star Ilona Maher made her debut for the Bristol Bears women\u2019s team in front of a record home crowd of 9,240 fans on Sunday. But Maher, \u201cthe most followed rugby player on the planet,\u201d could not prevent Bristol from losing 40-17 to defending champion Gloucester-Hartpury in a Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby match. She came on as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[31902,31904,31903],"class_list":["post-36850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-bristol","tag-maher","tag-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36852,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36850\/revisions\/36852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}