There’s being a natural athlete and then there’s this.
Canmore’s Holly Phillips could hardly believe her eyes when she clicked and opened an email informing her she had been chosen to the Rugby Canada U18 Women’s tour invite roster.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Phillips.
What makes this accomplishment even grander is that less than a year ago Phillips hadn’t considered joining the girl’s high school rugby team, and for that matter, she hadn’t even thrown around a rugby ball.
“I was literally starting from scratch,” said Phillips, 16, as everything has kind of come unexpectedly.
“I started playing rugby eight months ago for the Banff Bears high school team … and ever since it was something I wanted to do,” said Phillips, who plays prop.
“(Then) I made the U16 Alberta team and got an email (from Rugby Canada) that I was on the long list for team Canada. In October I went to Ontario for a selection camp.”
While in Ontario and still relatively green to the sport, she was scared and overwhelmed with the day-to-day training, but showed signs of progress.
The final selection for the 24-player travelling roster was made in early January and Phillips waited for an email over a long month to see if she would be on it.
When she got the email last week, she had to read it over and over to make sure it was a reality.
This isn’t Philips’ first taste of field action, however. In 2014, Phillips laced up for the Bow Valley Wolverines football team to become one of the only females to play in the club’s history.
Now on the verge of representing Canada on the pitch, the financial situation for Phillips may be a “deal breaker.” She needs to raise $3,500 by the end of March to cover U.K. trip expenses and allow her to join the team for a test series in April against England’s U18 women’s team.
Phillips is working with Banff Rugby on different ways to help with the fundraising.
As well, she has a GoFundMe account – an online fundraising website – that can be found at www.gofundme.com/hollyphillips.
“Every young athlete probably understands where I’m coming from when I say it, but the cost to play at an elite level is so demanding and it takes a bit of the fun out of it when you’re stressing if you have enough money,” she said.
This moment for her has accumulated over months of “brutal” and “hard work” at the gym, often before school each day while relying on family members to help out, even if it was just tossing around a ball.
The long process hasn’t been pretty, she said.
“It was very independent and it got hard to stay motivated sometimes,” said Phillips.
“For me, it was a ton of time in the gym, conditioning, and getting stronger because I didn’t have the body mass. And then the technical stuff for me, it had to be more drastic than everyone else because I was literally starting from scratch. I had to learn how to do it properly and they saw that improvement.”
With college around the corner, Phillips hopes this selection will help her in that respect, and she has set a long-term goal to play for the women’s national team.
She still sees a long road ahead of her, even if she hears how much she’s already accomplished.
“I don’t see it like that, it’s the beginning, it just started for me,” Phillips said. “I got this incredible opportunity to take it somewhere and I don’t want to stop now.”
