Suffering a knee injury while playing touch rugby as a teenager proved to be an opportunity rather than a setback for Bella Milo.
It was while she was recuperating from the injury that Milo decided to start helping out with the coaching at her club, Auckland Marist, in her native New Zealand.
Rugby has since taken Milo around the world, to three Women’s Rugby World Cups – as a fly-half with Samoa in 2006 and 2014 and as Hong Kong’s assistant coach in 2017 – while always seeking opportunities to combine playing with coaching.
Milo is now player/coach and general manager of the Valley club in Hong Kong, where she has been based since 2015, and she will have the opportunity to hone her existing skills and develop new ones as a participant in the Gallagher High Performance Academy WXV 2024.
“My first experience of coaching came when I did my knee playing touch as a teenager,” Milo told World Rugby.
“I was out for the season and so ended up helping and coaching. Since then, I have been a player/coach and coach, and coached when I have been out with long-term injuries such as shoulder or knee.”
Rugby has been part of Milo’s life since she played her first match as a four-year-old at a club in Hamilton.
“I had to go with my dad and brother to rugby training, so dad decided to let me play in the Under-5s. I have played ever since,” she said.
Although Milo has gone on to enjoy personal success as a player and coach, her ethos and values are firmly based on a belief that the team comes first.
“Rugby is a team sport whether you are a coach, player, physio or manager,” she said.
“It’s not about me, it’s about the team and keeping that at the front of everything is important.
“You have to understand everyone’s ‘whys’. The team has to buy into the same goals and take accountability for each other. You also have got to have fun doing it, both on and off the pitch, through social challenges and hard work.”
Milo will share those values with the other participants in the Gallagher High Performance Academy, which she also hopes will help inspire other young women and girls to become rugby coaches.
“The more young girls see women in performance coaching roles, the more female coaches we will have at all levels,” she said.
“This programme offers invaluable opportunities to aspire too and the support for them to excel.”