Women’s Elite Rugby enters season two with lessons learned, a pop star investor and ambition for US game

Denver Onyx celebrate winning the inaugural WER Legacy Cup in June 2025. Photograph: Women's Elite Rugby Dr Jessica Hammond-Graf is president and chief sporting officer of Women’s Elite Rugby , the US semi-professional rugby union competition that kicks off its second season on Saturday in Massachusetts and Illinois. Like most Americans, she did not grow up with the game.

An Army kid, she spent a lot of time playing soccer. In the early 90s, at the University of Connecticut, she tried out for the round ball and then played Ultimate Frisbee. Then, one fateful day, a woman on her floor said, “Hey, you should come try rugby, OK?

” Hammond-Graf agreed, then found herself starting her very first game at fly-half, responsible for directing a team. “Someone was running by me and was like, ‘Where am I supposed to go? ’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t even know where I’m supposed to be.

So like, let’s just figure this out, right? ’” Related: Women’s Elite Rugby: new league aims to boost US game and – finally – pay its players In America, it was ever thus. Deep-end introductions can be challenging, bordering on terrifying, but can also prove extremely potent, seeding love of the game for life.