Latest news with #RhonaLloyd
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Rhona Lloyd ready to embrace World Cup after finding new lease of life thanks to a summer sojourn in Spain
She may be one of the most exciting players in Scottish women's rugby, but winger Rhona Lloyd says she considered her own future in the game after failing to get selected for last summer's Olympics. The Scotland stalwart — who heads to the Women's Rugby World Cup later this month — was once billed a 'try-scoring sensation' by former England captain Sarah Hunter and has regularly represented Team GB in the game of sevens. She admitted, however, that she'd had a 'really tough 12 months' following the Games in Paris, and was 'really struggling' with her enjoyment of playing. 'Six months ago, I didn't know if I'd be going to this World Cup,' revealed Lloyd. 'I was really struggling with not enjoying rugby, not enjoying playing. 'It had been a really tough 12 months coming off not getting selected for the Olympics. That was always going to take time and I didn't really give myself that time last summer — it was very much Olympics, straight into WXV, straight into a season and I think that was a big learning curve. Luckily, things are falling into place at the right time.' Solace, she says, was sought in one of the most inspiring places on earth — the Camino de Santiago in Spain — which for years has seen scores of pilgrims tread its paths for religious or spiritual reasons, personal growth or, indeed, inner inspiration. 'I think I took a big step back over summer and, (in) our month off, I did the Camino de Santiago,' she explained. 'I really got out of the rugby bubble and I think that gave me a lot of perspective about that decision, that this is what I want to do and making that decision myself to get back into it. 'Taking a step back, talking to psychologists — that's definitely got me back to where I am now.' Lloyd, who has signed for Sale Sharks next season, says she's now 'buzzing' with excitement for the upcoming World Cup and using her sevens' experience when it comes to performing under pressure. 'I think Sevens has been huge for performing under pressure on the World Series,' she said. 'Sevens is massive for skill development at times where, for example, if you miss your tackle, there's nobody covering it. 'There's a lot of pressure on you as an individual. I think to get exposed to that has been massive in terms of development as a 15s player.' The winger, who is now an Ambassador for the Rugby World Cup's 'Strong Bodies, Strong Minds' campaign, is a huge believer in body positivity and female empowerment and is not afraid to use her voice to advocate for change. Particularly when it comes to supporting her team-mates. Concern over fellow players' contracts is a case in point. With several players left in the dark as to whether they would have their deal renewed post-World Cup, Lloyd admitted this was hardly the best way to prepare for the biggest tournament of their lives. 'Personally, I do have a contract for Scotland next season,' she revealed. 'But aside from my personal circumstance, I'm not happy that the squad aren't all in that place. 'There's a lot of the squad that are going into this World Cup, more than half, that are not coming out of it with contracts. 'And I think that's a lot of pressure to put on a player to perform under, not knowing if you've got a job in the following months. 'If you look at the best teams in the world, a lot of their contracts are running until next June, which takes the disruption out of the World Cup year. 'So, yes, I think it obviously has been very disruptive for this to happen during our World Cup pre-season, which is the biggest tournament of our lives.'
BBC News
04-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Ambition v realism: the balance at heart of Scotland's Murrayfield move
The growth of women's rugby in Scotland has been gathering pace in recent contracts. Glasgow and Edinburgh playing in the Celtic Challenge. The national team winning the WXV2 title. Heading to this summer's World Cup with genuine hope of reaching the knockout Scottish Rugby is seeking to capitalise on the increased exposure and interest by moving next year's Women's Six Nations match with England away from their normal home of Hive Stadium and into the big bowl at an exciting step and an ambitious one. Scotland sold out the 7,800-capacity Hive Stadium for the visit of England last year but moving to the 67,000-seater Murrayfield represents quite a leap of faith. 'We want to lay next gauntlet down' All of this is a far cry to what many players in the Scotland squad experienced when they first represented their country."My first couple of matches were at Broadwood in Cumbernauld," Scotland wing Rhona Lloyd told BBC Scotland. "We played before the under-20s men and there was hardly anybody there."It's been a massive journey over the past 30 years to get to this point and I'm so excited for this moment and then for what that will mean for the future."For Lloyd, the announcement is a reflection of all the work that has gone before and a source of real Rugby's head of women and girl's rugby, Gemma Fay, echoes that but does acknowledge that it is a bold says the initial target is to breach the capacity of the Hive. Then they will look to eclipse the crowd for the most-attended women's match ever held in Scotland, which was when the national football team played Jamaica before the 2019 World game at Hampden drew 18,555 fans and served to inspire not only those who were there, but also those running women's sport in this country."I was at that game and it was absolutely amazing," former goalkeeper Fay says. "It was a moment in time and it's almost like the gauntlet had been laid down to say, 'look what we can do in women's sport in Scotland'."We have an opportunity to better that, but we want to take everybody in women's sport in Scotland with us because this is not about us versus them. "This is about us together. And if we can then go on and lay that next gauntlet down, who knows what can happen within women's sport in Scotland." Lessons to learn from football? That day at Hampden six years ago was the springboard to the Scotland team moving all their matches to the national stadium. However, that record crowd figure proved to be the high watermark rather than a platform for sustained started to dwindle and the vast empty stands did not help create the big-game atmosphere fans crave and, crucially, did not inspire the lies the lesson for Scottish Rugby - ambition is to be embraced, but it must be grounded in a sense of realism about what is achievable, and is no suggestion at this stage of the women's national team decamping full-time to special atmosphere they have developed recently at the Hive should not be given up lightly, and moving next door to the big stadium for a one-off occasion seems like a sensible approach to test the and Glasgow have done so to good effect at Murrayfield and Hampden for their festive 1872 Cup derbies, and the hope is Scottish rugby fans will buy into this match in similar numbers."We don't want this to be a one-off," said Scotland head coach Bryan Easson. "We want to do it maybe once a season to show how far it's come."But we don't want to forget what we've got out there [at Hive Stadium]. The crowd that we've got, it is a different audience. "The Hive is a brilliant home for us and it will continue to be our home. We'll still be there, but we'll also enjoy the occasion out here [at Murrayfield] too."
