{"id":26878,"date":"2025-08-21T05:38:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T09:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/ilona-maher-debuts-at-the-womens-rugby-world-cup-usa-vs-england\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T05:38:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T09:38:58","slug":"ilona-maher-debuts-at-the-womens-rugby-world-cup-usa-vs-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/rugby\/ilona-maher-debuts-at-the-womens-rugby-world-cup-usa-vs-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilona Maher debuts at the Women&#8217;s Rugby World Cup: USA vs England"},"content":{"rendered":"Ilona Maher is set to debut at the Women&#8217;s Rugby World Cup when the United States faces England, the host country, in the tournament&#8217;s opening match.\n\nMaher became the world&#8217;s most followed female rugby player, achieving stardom and helping the United States obtain the bronze medal in rugby sevens at the Paris Olympics last summer.\n\nSubsequently, he focused his attention on the 15-a-side code and the World Cup. Maher, 28, joined the English club Bristol Bears earlier this year, where he scored four tries in seven appearances. The demand to see her was so intense that the Bears had to move their home games to a larger stadium.\n\nThe United States, nicknamed the Eagles, has a difficult start in the World Cup: England is the favorite of the tournament and will seek to make an early mark during the match, which will be played at the stadium of the Premier League football club, Sunderland.\n\nThe tournament this summer promises to be the biggest yet: 16 teams will compete to lift the trophy at Twickenham, London, on September 27, with attendance records likely to be broken as the sport seeks to go mainstream.\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a3.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F0820%2Fr1534308_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Ilona Maher con sus compa\u00f1eras de equipo de Estados Unidos en una ceremonia de bienvenida en el Ayuntamiento de Sunderland el s\u00e1bado.\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Ilona Maher con sus compa\u00f1eras de equipo de Estados Unidos en una ceremonia de bienvenida en el Ayuntamiento de Sunderland el s\u00e1bado.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\nMaher&#8217;s actions on and off the field have earned him a level of personal fame, he appeared in season 33 of &#8220;Dancing With the Stars&#8221; in the United States, and have increased the profile of the sport.\n\nMaher hopes to see full stadiums in England and bring the excitement of rugby to the people watching from home.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>People have to come and show that this is something exciting and entertaining to watch. Our sporting events have to be something that attracts people: it&#8217;s something fun to go to.<\/p><cite>Ilona Maher<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Maher backs rebel rugby leagues, but will not &#8216;degrade the value&#8217;.<\/li><\/ul>\n\nTen other players are ready to make their World Cup debut on Friday, while Maher, Keia Mae Sagapolu, Tahlia Brody and Emily Henrich are the four debutantes in the starting lineup.\n\n<strong>United States vs. England<\/strong>\n\n<strong>USA Eagles:<\/strong> Rogers, Treder, Sagapolu, Brody, Jarrell-Searcy, Zackary, Perris-Redding, Johnson, Ortiz, Hawkins, Mataitoga, Kelter, Maher, Henrich, Sharp\n\n<strong>Substitutes:<\/strong> Stathopoulos, Leatherman, Jacoby, Ehrecke, Tafuna, Bargell, Bitter, Ibarra","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ilona Maher is set to debut at the Women&#8217;s Rugby World Cup when the United States faces England, the host country, in the tournament&#8217;s opening match. Maher became the world&#8217;s most followed female rugby player, achieving stardom and helping the United States obtain the bronze medal in rugby sevens at the Paris Olympics last summer. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[509,7494,518,641],"class_list":{"0":"post-26878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-england","9":"tag-ilona-maher","10":"tag-rugby-world-cup","11":"tag-united-states"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}