Exactly why Ellie Kildunne's Bristol Bears move is a 'celestial match'

It was perhaps inevitable that Bristol Bears and Ellie Kildunne would meet and fall for each other. It’s what star-crossed lovers do.

The only team in the rugby world that has ever dared to call themselves “a marketing agency that plays rugby” and the world’s most exciting player. It is a celestial match.

The possibilities on the rugby pitch are appetising enough. Bristol play a fast-paced brand thanks to an entertaining cohort of young players. Adding Kildunne to the mix is license for Millie David, Reneeqa Bonner and friends to let their attacking instincts run even wilder than before. Bristol are going to run in some unimaginably good scores next season. That is a certainty.

Kildunne’s signing may also be the impetus that forges Bristol into an all-round tougher team. A team that can challenge for the top four in JAECOO Premiership Women’s Rugby again. With Kildunne comes the expectation of success, and that heaps pressure on the players and coaches, efforts are doubled and the feedback loop goes round again.

Equal to what we’ll see on the pitch is the prospect of what we’ll see off it as two creative forces collide: Ellie Kildunne and the Bristol Bears social media team.

Kildunne is a certified superstar of both women’s and men’s rugby, but also in the wider world of sport. There’s many reasons for this. First and foremost she’s a jolt of electricity on a rugby field, secondly she’s firmly in the public spotlight, especially since last year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards where she finished as runner-up to golfer Rory McIlroy.

Kids adore watching Kildunne because not only is she always doing something special, she’s extremely identifiable thanks to her iconic corkscrew curls. Now the world champion Red Roses can sell out Allianz Stadium whenever they choose, fans are being asked to watch from much further back, yet the 26-year-old still stands out with her hair bouncing around the pitch in pursuit of its owner. For kids especially, something as simple as being able to tell who’s who from the top of a stadium really matters.

Off the field she has an undoubtably cool look. The clothes, her demeanour, she speaks brilliantly too, with a healthy dose of self-deprecation.

Her Rugby Rodeo podcast with Jess Breach is 1,000 subscribers shy of the leading women’s rugby podcast The Good, the Scaz, the Rugby yet has nearly twice as many Instagram followers, yet it’s been running for half the time.

Then there’s her passion for photography which will see her rock up to matches when she’s not playing and start snapping away. Other past-times of hers are more fleeting: trying to learn the guitar, trying to learn the piano, painting in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep.

She’s also an amateur tattoo artist. Ask England head coach John Mitchell to talk you through Kildunne’s skills with a tattoo gun if you ever get the chance. Kildunne describes the thread that ties her passions together as ‘chaos’. It has another name: ADHD. Which she was diagnosed with in 2024.

But even her fleeting passions are interesting, and very relatable. Who hasn’t had that thought at some point in their life that it would be great to play the guitar or the piano? Or to leave an indelible mark on their boss for that matter.

So what does this mean for Kildunne’s Bristol era? The city is of course famed for its creative scene, especially in media, music and art. If Bristol haven’t unmasked Banksy as Kildunne during a day rave in Bristol harbour by Christmas, you’d be surprised.

The first, and so far only, foray we’ve had into this collaboration so far was the announcement of the 26-year-old’s signing in June. It was a stylish affair. Kildunne posing in front of multiple mocked-up magazine front covers of her raising the Women’s World Cup at Allianz Stadium. Bristol had even created a broadsheet newspaper ‘The Daily Bear’ for the occasion with the headline: Where will she end up?

As a first hit-out of their combined creative intent it was a strong showing. They are clearly on the same page. Kildunne herself has alluded to how aligned Bristol are with players wanting to pursue the commercial opportunities off the field.

“It’s really exciting on every front,” she told Jess Breach on the Rugby Rodeo podcast. “I had a conversation with them [Bristol] and I was a little bit nervous about everything that’s been going on with social media because it [her Harlequins exit] was a bit of a kick in the teeth and I didn’t know what opinion that would leave them with.

“But they just said ‘let’s address the elephant in the room: how can we help you? We know you’ve got loads of different things going on but how can we help? What you’re doing is brilliant’. They obviously had Ilona [Maher] play there and they said ‘we just want to help, we want to get the best out of you on the pitch’.

“I’m really looking forward to it and where it can take my rugby and looking forward to living in a new place as well. To have that opportunity to live in Bristol, Bristol’s really cool.”

 

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As to what we can expect from the creative minds at Bristol now Kildunne is in their ranks, you are hopeful that we’ll see their customary playful humour deployed in ever more varied and ambitious ways, using the 2024 World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year’s dual-offering of world-beating player and major marketing figure. The Kildunne Barbie applauding her real-life self from the stands after she’s scored another wonder try, perhaps.

They’ll also be major, meticulously planned activations at various points in the season. And it will be fascinating to see whether Bristol can beat their record attendance of 9,240 for a standalone women’s game at Ashton Gate Stadium with Kildunne in the team.

That record was set when Maher made her debut for the club in January 2025. Since then, England have played in Bristol three times and, most recently, welcomed 26,247 spectators through the doors for the Guinness Women’s Six Nations match against Wales in March.

You would wager that with Kildunne, Bristol will go above and beyond 10,000 spectators for her first game at the Gate. Bristol only played one match there last season [a 54-14 loss to Gloucester Hartpury] but you’d expect the club to try and host at least two matches at Ashton Gate next season – just as they did when Maher was in the team – and possibly even go for a third.

Social media numbers are sometimes difficult to quantify, ticket sales are not. And if Kildunne’s time in a Bristol shirt helps to repeatedly raise records at the box office then both she and Bears will have significantly helped push women’s rugby and the PWR to ever further reaches.

The impact of the Ellie Kildunne Bristol era won’t just be good for Bristol Bears and Ellie Kildunne, it should also benefit the women’s game at large.

Whatever happens though, it’s certainly going to be a lot of fun.