Ellena Perry: The prop who's shown she isn’t afraid of change

Throughout her career Ellena Perry has shown that she isn’t scared of change. After all, this is a woman who took a career break to give birth to her first child at 25 and then return to elite level rugby with barely a pause.

It is a good thing too, because in the last six months she has faced plenty of transition and change.

This year, she has started a new adventure at international level and begun life under new coach Dan Murphy at Gloucester-Hartpury, all while working full time and looking after her bubbly three-year-old son, Bert. Now, she faces new competition for her hold on the loosehead shirt at Kingsholm with the arrival of a familiar face.

Ireland prop Niamh O’Dowd has come in as injury cover for Mackenzie Carson for the rest of the season. In doing so O’Dowd’s arrival has added extra spice to training. Since the summer, she and Perry have grown used to competing for the Ireland number one jersey.

“She’s settling in well, she’s a breath of fresh air, a new person, a bit of competition,” said Perry. “It is unfortunate for Mackenzie, with her out for a while, but it’s good to bring in an extra person at loosehead. Competition’s always good, and I’m looking forward to it.”

The fact that Perry and O’Dowd are teammates for Ireland are reflective of the biggest change in Perry’s rugby career so far. In the summer she made her Ireland debut in a World Cup warm-up against Canada and then featured in three of Ireland’s four matches in the tournament before they fell to France in the quarter-finals.

Perry’s chance came after Christy Haney was ruled out of the tournament through injury. Her Gloucester-Hartpury and now Ireland team-mates Sam Monaghan and Neve Jones mentioned to Ireland head coach Scott Bemand that Perry qualified for Ireland thanks to her maternal grandfather, who hailed from Derry.

Bemand knew Perry from their time as coach and player for England, where she won 11 caps. Perry had fulfilled the World Rugby three-year stand-down period in the birthright transfer process, so her path to wear green, rather than white, at international level was open. Bemand didn’t hesitate and was soon on the phone.

Once Bemand called, all that was needed was for Perry’s boss at PoloWorks Insurance to give her the time-off. As one of her personal sponsors, they were more than happy to oblige even if she wasn’t able to give them an exact time frame.

“It was a crazy, like a whirlwind of four or five weeks pre-World Cup,” Perry said. “It was too good of an opportunity to turn down. It was exciting, and I think I got the phone call on the Monday, and then the Sunday I flew out to Dublin for one of the training camps for the pre-games before the World Cup.

“It’s been a while since I had a white shirt on, so it was all just very new to me. It was an amazing opportunity, and I can’t fault the girls, they helped me so much, and honestly, I had the best time. I always used to be a bit anxious and maybe that’s what let me down in the past, but I’m so glad I did it, and I will always look back on it with very fond memories.”

While France stopped Ireland from reaching the semi-finals, their progress under Bemand has been remarkable. They went from bottom of the 2023 Women’s Six Nations table on zero points, to third with 10 in 2024, and then third with 11 points this year, and Perry says she is looking forward to Ireland colours when they kick off their tournament against England at Allianz Stadium in April.

Ireland’s development has also meant that their players are attracting the attention of Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) clubs. As well as O’Dowd, Monaghan and Jones at Gloucester-Hartpury, Exeter Chiefs is home to Clíodhna Moloney MacDonald, Dorothy Wall, and Edel McMahon, while Shannon Ikahihifo, Andrea Stock, and Grace Moore run out for Trailfinders Women.

This year’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations Player of the Championship, Aoife Wafer joined Harlequins after the World Cup, and her fellow back rower Brittany Hogan will link up with Sale Sharks in the new year.

“All the Irish girls had such a strong World Cup, and the PWR want the best players,” Perry said. “There’s so much talent in the Irish squad, and where they want to play is up to them.

“Because everyone’s had a really good World Cup, I’m not surprised they’re catching PWR team’s eyes.”

Since returning to PWR, Perry’s focus has shifted to helping Gloucester-Hartpury claim a fourth consecutive title. There is one big change from those previous triumphs, with Sean Lynn, the man who led them to domestic glory now in charge of Wales, and Murphy one of Lynn’s assistants promoted in his place.

As the former scrum and forwards coach, Perry has worked closely with Murphy in the past, and he still enjoys packing down in training with the tight five. Murphy has also been joined by former England men’s international Matt Banahan as his assistant.

It means that while things were similar after Perry returned from her post-World Cup break – which featured a long promised trip to DisneyLand Paris for Bert – there was a freshness to the club, with new voices and new ideas.

That freshness has certainly been working. Gloucester-Hartpury laid down a marker on the opening weekend by beating Saracens in a repeat of last season’s final and are unbeaten since.

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“It’s very similar how it was, but Murph’s got his own ways of doing things,” Perry said. “Banners (Banahan) has come in as well, and he’s been really good, and it’s a nice new balance between the two.

“It’s just getting used to different things, but Murph was there before, so it’s all kind of very similar to how it’s been run, how training is, and what days we’re in, so different, but the same. We’ve got different calls and things like that, and we’ve just been getting used to them.”

Worryingly for other PWR teams, Perry believes Gloucester-Hartpury are only just getting started.

“The girls have come back from the World Cup, and we were kind of straight back into it, so we didn’t have much time to get into all the new things. It’s been good, and the more and more we play, the more games we get through, things will start gelling more, and hopefully we’ll get even better.”