Rhona Lloyd says playing for the Lions tour was beyond her wildest dreams growing up, but the Scotland star is very much now dreaming of earning a place.
It is now a decade since Lloyd, alongside Chloe Rollie, Helen Nelson and Lisa Thomson, established herself in the Scotland set-up and the winger has gone on to earn 66 caps for her country.
When she debuted against England in the 2016 Six Nations, there was a crowd of no more than a couple of hundred, many of them family and friends of the players. The match also acted as a warm-up for a men’s under-20s match.
Fast forward a decade and Lloyd is among the players contracted to Scottish Rugby, while playing in the PWR with Sale Sharks and recently ran out in front of 30,000 fans at Murrayfield.
On a personal level, the 29-year-old's try in the drubbing by the Red Roses took her into second place in Scotland Women’s all-time try-scoring charts, with her tally of 30 just seven behind record-holder Lucy Millard.
Lloyd was speaking in her role as an ambassador for Royal London, founding partners of the Lions tour to New Zealand.
The Scotland star was also encouraging clubs to enter Royal London’s latest Championing Women and Girls’ Grassroots Rugby Award.
The initiative, now in its third year, recognises one club from each of the unions that make up the Lions, with a £10,000 grant to invest in their women and girls' programmes.
As she pointed out, the milestones she has achieved in her career show just how far the women’s game has come.
"In the last 10 years I've been playing internationally, things keep happening that I didn't dream of because they did not seem possible,” the Scotland international said.
“If you told me that we’d be playing in front of 30,000 fans at Murrayfield, even three years ago, I would have said ‘that's 10 years away’.
“The growth of the women's game has just been absolutely exponential.”
The inaugural women’s Lions team will play six matches in New Zealand next September, and Lloyd admits she still has to pinch herself at the prospect of being in contention to tour remains surreal.
“I'm dreaming of that now, but I can't tell you that was a dream growing up because it didn't exist,” she continued.
"I think it's amazing that now girls that are playing under 15s, under 18s, they can say 'I want to be a British and Irish Lion'.
“I would absolutely love to represent where I'm from and be on that plane. It literally is beyond my wildest dreams because it didn't exist until a couple of years ago. It's extremely exciting."
Planning for the tour took another major step last week when Jo Yapp was confirmed as the Lions head coach.
Lloyd believes former Australia coach Yapp is the perfect person for the role.
"When I saw the announcement that it was Jo Yapp, I just thought that she's the absolute perfect person for the job.
"I worked with her for a week when I played for the Barbarians and she was the head coach.
“Something that really struck me about Jo was how quickly she could bring people together.
“She really created an environment that it felt like we'd been playing together for months and we'd met on the Monday and we had a game on the Saturday at Twickenham.
"Whoever's in this position is going to need to bring people together from different clubs and different countries really quickly and she's got experience doing that and I think she's the perfect person for it.”
Moving forward, as Lloyd and her Scotland team-mates look to rebound from a disappointing Six Nations, Lloyd acknowledged that Lions selection will undoubtedly be in the back of players’ minds.
"It will be up to players and teams to find a strategy for focusing on themselves, staying in the room and trying to block out a lot of that noise,” she said.
“I think we always see that in the men's game that we could predict who's going to be on that plane now. We could be having a very different conversation if we had this chat again this time next season.
“At the moment, for me, I'm definitely just focusing on the week-to-week with Sale Sharks and Scotland.”
Asked if their Lions hopes had been addressed during their time in Scotland camp, Lloyd said it had not been on the agenda – yet.
“I think as we get closer to the tour there'll potentially definitely be a conversation there on the horizon,” she added.
Royal London, the only Founding Partner of The British & Irish Lions Women’s rugby team, has announced that applications are open for its annual Championing Women and Girls’ Rugby Award.
Applications are open until 12pm on Monday 20 July 2026 via the Lions website
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