Central North Rugby: Isabella Thrupp goes from rugby rookie to Pirates mainstay

After first pulling on the black and gold when she was 15, in July the 20-year old played her 50th game for the club.

Sadly, as it turned out, it was to be her last for the season, with the cloud of COVID descending again and seeing the competition suspended (to be later abandoned) eight days later.

It was a bitter blow with Pirates looking a good chance of breaking through for their maiden Central North women's 7s premiership.

READ ALSO:

Thrupp is one of the remaining 'originals' after getting a taste for rugby in Tamworth's Summer 7s competition.

Learning after the competition that Pirates were trying to start up a women's team, along with a few of her team-mates she decided to join up.

Initially there was no Central North competition, so they would travel away and play at different tournaments. Subsequently Thrupp's first game for Pirates was against international opposition - it was a tournament on the Gold Coast against either Fiji or New Zealand.

She said running out for her 50th game was "pretty special", especially in front of a home crowd, although she really had no idea about it until the club put up a post congratulating her on their Facebook page that morning.

Making it all the more memorable, she scored the opening try of the game.

"I said to the girls before we went out, today I'm going to score a try," Thrupp joked.

She didn't waste any time, crossing in the first minute.

Before giving rugby a crack Thrupp, who is a property manager with LJ Hooker, had played a lot of oztag and touch football. But her main sporting interest was horses.

"I'm really big into my horses," she said.

For as long as she can remember she has loved being around them.

With the footy season over, Thrupp would usually now be starting to get busier with horse events but with COVID there isn't much going on at the moment.

"How I kind of do it is I play rugby in the winter, and once it's over I start competing," she said.

She does a lot of camprafting and has more recently started doing some stock horse challenges and cow horse events, which she described as a combination of campdrafting, cutting and stock horse showing.

She has also even branched into training her own campdrafting horses.

"I've got three at the moment," Thrupp said.

She works them most days, either in the morning before work or after.

Thrupp said it can be a long process to get a horse to a level where they are ready to compete - she has one that she has been working with for two years - but she enjoys it.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: