Up-and-coming Garioch rugby talent Megan Riach believes being involved with Edinburgh Rugby during the recent Celtic Challenge campaign has helped her “learn so much and grow up as a player and as a person”.
Between mid-December and last weekend Edinburgh and Glasgow squads were involved in the high level event with Irish and Welsh teams.
There were some tough results for the Scots, but plying against full internationals in the other sides will only help 18-year-old tighthead prop Riach and other youngsters going forward.
“While it was gruelling and exhausting at times with the travel and the level of training and games being a step up, I was able to learn so much and grow up as a player and as a person,” Riach said of the experience.
“I was originally told to look at it as a training opportunity as I was so young and inexperienced compared to the others, but I got my head down and trained as hard as I could and then one week I was on that teamsheet and it felt like I’d won the lottery and a few more games came after that.
“I was so nervous being so young compared to everyone else, but I knew a couple of the girls from last year’s Scotland under-18s and they were so welcoming.
“I also struggled with the weight of the scrum and maintaining a good position under the pressure early on, but the team and coaches were patient and eventually it clicked.
“The fitness levels were also intense, but head coach Claire Cruikshank really helped and suggested I saw the team sports psychologist and it was the best thing I could’ve done.
“He reminded me that every training session isn’t going to be spectacular and that, as a new player, at this level I was not expected to go onto the pitch and change the world.
“And, while this is obvious, just being reminded that trying to maintain such a high standard for myself would only ruin this learning experience and affect my ability to grow throughout the programme was such an important thing to go back to when things weren’t going 100 percent.
“In terms of skills, I genuinely learnt so much in defence and attack and in terms of scrums and lineouts. I’ve come out of the experience as a completely different – and more confident – player.”
Riach grew up in Torphins and started her rugby journey at Deeside when she was around six or seven.
She played there for about 18 months before moving further north.
“After that I always wanted to continue with sport and I tried to jeep football going as it was something I had taken up right before I moved, but I found that in the now all-boys team I was part of I was not ever fully accepted,” Riach, who is now in first year at Aberdeen University studying criminology, sociology and anthropology, explained.
“That was when me and my mum got involved with Huntly Rugby Club and it went from there. I moved from club to club as I got older going from Huntly to Grampian girls, then Moray and finally Garioch.
“I was always told I couldn’t do ‘boy things’, especially spending every weekend on my granny’s farm. I was always told the farming jobs were for the boys and from this I gained a competitiveness and it began with my brother.
“When he took up rugby I said ‘this looks easy and my sort of thing’ and I wanted to be just like him and secretly better.
“I’ve played with Garioch for about four years and this season has been my first season of senior rugby.
“Before Christmas in the Premiership I absolutely loved being part of a squad that had good numbers at training and a lot of big matches where I could test myself out and gain experience.
“Garioch is a team full of heart. The league season felt really impactful and while we may not be top of the Premiership table every game is played with passion and enjoyment and after every win or loss we socialise with each other. There is such a great bunch of people at the club.”
Megan Riach is pictured with her Garioch team mate Eilidh Craig
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