{"id":311193,"date":"2025-11-27T02:00:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311193\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T02:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:00:06","slug":"isla-norman-bell-steps-into-pwr-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/311193\/","title":{"rendered":"Isla Norman-Bell steps into PWR spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Premier Women\u2019s Rugby competition (PWR) recently began a new season following an incredibly successful summer for women\u2019s rugby.<\/p>\n<p>The Women\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby World Cup<\/a> broke viewership records and heralded a new beginning for the Women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<p>Domestic clubs have developed as a result of the tournament\u2019s momentum, with an influx of international players joining the PWR\u2019s domestic competition.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760269811_297_spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>RUGBY SVNS 2026 promo<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1760269811_297_spacer-new.png\" alt=\"Video Spacer\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Isla Norman-Bell is a Team GB athlete, both in rugby sevens and fifteens. She made her team debut for Ealing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/ealing-trailfinders-women\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trailfinders<\/a> last month. Although a Team GB athlete, she grew up in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/new-zealand-women\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand<\/a> amongst other budding rugby stars who have also gone on to play for their countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of the New Zealand and Australian girls I played with or against whilst growing up,\u201d Norman-Bell told\u00a0RugbyPass.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you\u2019re on the field together, you forget who everyone is and you just want to win. We\u2019re all good friends though, after we always talk and catch up on how things are, it\u2019s always really nice\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the 2024\/25 HSBC SVNS series, she acted as vice-captain for Team GB, playing in 19 matches and scoring 20 points across the season.<\/p>\n<p>Although predominantly a rugby sevens athlete, Isla has joined the Ealing Trailfinders 15s team this season in the PWR \u2013 the biggest women\u2019s club tournament in rugby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a big change, but at the end of the day it\u2019s still rugby and the skill set is still the same. Sevens has given me a lot and allowed me to really hone in on my skills. So there\u2019s been challenges but at the end of the day it\u2019s just rugby and I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this summer, it was announced that Team GB\u2019s Rugby Sevens team would no longer have professional contracts, with its athletes being employed part-time.<\/p>\n<p>But Norman-Bell is focused on the season ahead and the opportunities available to her team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s quite different at the moment having gone from full-time contracts to being a bit more part-time. We still have the World Series and that will be key in staying in the top eight to remain in the World Series and that will help moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Going forward, Isla has her eyes on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/premiership-womens-rugby\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PWR<\/a> and the World Series to hopefully qualify again for her dream tournament: the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHopefully we keep Team GB in the World Series and then moving forward, there\u2019ll still be a team for the Olympics in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRugby has always been the biggest part of my life since I was really young. I\u2019ve always watched it, it was big in our family. I always played what I could at school and I always really enjoyed it. It\u2019s been a huge part of my life and will always continue to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Premier Women\u2019s Rugby competition (PWR) recently began a new season following an incredibly successful summer for women\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-311193","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}