Hunter Wildfires player Kayla Waldron earns six-month contract in Irish women's program: Rugby Union

Even a broken collarbone did not prove a deterrent.

Now, three years on, the Cardiff 19-year-old can hardly believe where the sport has taken her in such a short period of time.

The Hunter Wildfires second-rower is headed to her homeland of Ireland next week to train with their national women's program on a six-month contract she describes as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

"As soon as I started playing rugby I said to mum, 'This is what I want to do. This is where I want to end up," Waldron told the Newcastle Herald. "I thought originally if I could do it for Australia I would, but it just kind of happened that this opportunity came up.

"I'm going over for IQ Rugby, so it's Irish Qualified rugby players. They're looking for anyone overseas that is Irish qualified to come and train, get into a development sort of program.

"I had been talking to the head of IQ rugby for a while. He had a chat to the [Irish] sevens, the 15s and the London Irish [Rugby Club] coaches. I had to send them in a player portfolio and like a highlights reel.

"From there, they said, 'We think you have potential. We'd love to work with you and we have a few tournaments coming up and we'd love for you to get into training and be in the running for selection'."

Waldron was born in Ireland and moved to Australia with her family when she was seven.

She played basketball for several years before a game of rugby sevens with Hunter Sports High in year 10 prompted the code switch.

"I just loved it," Waldron said. "It was just the adrenaline. I had been playing basketball for ages and I was always a real rough-nut - loved the contact, loved being aggressive, loved being dominant.

"When I got into rugby, it was like I could let all of that go legally. So I loved it. It was fast. It was fun. You get to score tries, which everyone loves to do.

"I broke my collarbone in that first game and had a few months where I was sitting on the sidelines and thought I want to actually give it a go."

After playing a junior sevens competition with Hamilton Hawks, Waldron was picked up by the Wildfires for their maiden venture in the Sydney women's 15s competition in 2020.

She has floated between the sevens and 15s format of the sport since and also plays rugby league.

This weekend Waldron, who played for the Newcastle Knights in the Tarsha Gale Cup, will represent NSW Country under 19s at the national rugby league championships on the Gold Coast before flying to Ireland next week to start the next chapter of her life.

Based in Dublin, she starts training with the Irish women's sevens squad as soon as she arrives. In July, Waldron will have a run with the national 15s squad before joining London Irish in the English women's league.

"It's really exciting," she said. "They've supported me the whole way. For them to put their belief in me and say we want to give her a crack and give me this opportunity is proper surreal. It's once in a lifetime for sure."

Already there are opportunities to play with both sevens and 15s Irish teams in that six-month period, including the Women's World Series (7s) which starts in Dubai in December.

"Obviously I have to go over there and see what happens, but they said there's real potential for you to be making those squads," Waldron said.

"After that six-month stint they will decide whether they want to extend my contract or bring me back to Australia and go back to playing club here and sort of keep an eye on me."

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