Taylor hopes time training has helped Trailfinders 'nail' their DNA

Emma Taylor hopes that time on the training field has helped Trailfinders Women find their DNA.

To start the new Premiership Women’s Rugby season the London club have won twice and lost twice. Currently Barney Maddison’s side are sixth in the league title and are preparing for a Saturday afternoon clash with Gloucester Hartpury.

Trailfinders will arrive in the West Country a week removed from a bruising 57-5 loss to Saracens at Trailfinders Sports Ground. A result that ended a two game win streak.

In that time the team registered dominant wins against Sale Sharks and Bristol Bears, and had almost vanquished the memory of their opening round loss to Exeter Chiefs.

This indifferent start to the season has not got the alarm bells ringing but has just intensified the squad’s desire to get on the same page after a flurry of arrivals at the club.

This included the arrival of World Rugby Women’s 15s Player of the Year nominee and Women’s Rugby World Cup winner Meg Jones, along with Scotland trio Francesca McGhie, Rachel Malcolm and Emma Wassell and Black Ferns quartet Alana Borland, Georgia Ponsonby, Maia Roos and Tanya Kalounivale.

“With rugby it’s never about 15 people or about 23 people,” Taylor told RugbyPass. “The amount of injuries that we’ve seen in positions where they’re just finding their groove and then we lose them for X amount of games, then you get someone else in

“When we’re training during the week a lot of teams will do, I call it the probables versus possibles – the starting group against the people doing analysis (on the opposition).

“We’ve kind of stopped doing that because we’re still working on us. We’re still trying to be us and for us to nail what the Trailfinders’ DNA has to be across the board of the squad.

“I think this – Trailfinders versus Trailfinders – is going to be really good for us and it’s on us to make sure we’re going into games at the weekend prepared.”

All of the high-profile arrivals in West London have meant that there is an added air of expectation in Ealing. Bringing in players of such high international calibre means that not only are levels of performance are expected to improve, but so are results.

Taylor does not shirk the weight that surrounded Trailfinders coming into this season. Last year the side finished 17 points adrift from a semi-final spot.

The quality of player added to Maddison’s squad are more than capable of overturning that deficit and take the team to the semi-finals at the third time of asking.

“We’d be doing ourselves an injustice to not expect more from ourselves,” Taylor said.

“You’ve seen teams – internationally, men’s, women’s – you can bring the best players from a million different sides and put them on a team but that doesn’t mean they’re going to gel together.

 

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“Our thing is not just to be really good on paper, I think that’s what we’re just trying to get over that hump right now. At the end of the day, key players need to step up. Everyone needs to do their job.”

Gelling together has not been an issue. Even after several midseason arrivals because of injuries Taylor, who was a PWR winner with Saracens in 2021/22, sees plenty of indicators that there has been progression.

“Not to sound like a dork, because I feel like everyone always says this, but our environment has genuinely been incredible,” Taylor said. “I think we’ve found a pretty good balance.

“I know we’ve had some people sprinkled in a bit late. It may be an age thing, you get a bit competitive when you see people come in, but with maturity you see it as a good thing.

“The girls have been so helpful with each other. I don’t understand, all the props are best friends. You would never think that they’re all competing for a position. They are the tightest knit group. They’re incredible.

“Alana Borland, she and I are actually very similar, but she is a lineout expert. She helped me do extras on our week off. She helped me with jumping and stuff.

“It’s competitive in the sessions, but when we’re doing skills or whatever there’s no badness and people are really selfless.”

Selflessness is something that something that the 33-year-old knows a thing or two about. Almost 12 months ago the capped Canada forward sustained a season ending knee injury.

Despite Taylor’s efforts to get back on the pitch before the regular season’s end in February, she wound up having a nine month long preseason and instead could be found on the sidelines and in the commentary booth supporting her clubmates.

Thinking about it now the Nova Scotia native is not sure how to feel about that extra time off. Hours were poured into her rehabilitation and in the gym to come back as a more imposing, abrasive player.

“I looked at myself and I was tiny,” Taylor said. “I spent a lot of time rehabbing and getting strong again.

“When I came back in for preseason, some of the girls who know I’m not the biggest gym girl, said ‘look at your arms’.

“Honestly I feel the fittest and fastest I’ve ever been. Which is so annoying because I know I’m trying to retire at the end of the season.

“The best thing for me was to come into this season like a bit of a stronger, bigger version and I didn’t have to have this injury looming over me.”

When it comes to that retirement decision, Taylor admits that she flops ‘back and forth’. But that does not mean that she is not looking to go out in a blaze of glory. Rather than a damp squib.

“I started playing rugby at a time it wasn’t remotely professional,” Taylor said. “When I first started, I was still playing other sports. Basketball, ice hockey and all that jazz.

“I took it seriously but also didn’t. It wasn’t until I got my first cap early that I got back into the mix before the World Cup in 2022. That was when I started to take it seriously.

“I’ve only been playing this intense professional level for the last four years really. So I don’t feel as deteriorated as I should be. I feel like I’ve watched so many games where I’m like, how’s that person still playing? I never want to be that person.

“I know it doesn’t matter what other people thing but I feel like I’ve always wanted to end while I still feel pretty good. I want people to beg me to stay!”