The third player tracked down in deepest, darkest France was Hawick’s Lisa Thomson. A Borders’ ‘native’, Thomson has earned 12 Scotland caps since her 2016 debut in the 6 Nations try and captained the National 7’s side when they won the 2017 Rugby Europe Women’s Sevens’ Trophy.
She is now a BT Academy Stage 3 player and, like Jade Konkel and Chloe Rollie, has an initial one year contract to play in France for Lille Metropole Rugby Club Villeneuvois (LMRCV).
During her teenage years, she followed in Rollie’s footsteps by playing age-grade football with Hearts, but rugby was in her blood and she has subsequently played for Melrose, Murrayfield Wanderers and Edinburgh University.
Tell us a little about the non-rugby player.
I grew up in Hawick attending Trinity Primary School and Hawick High School leaving in 6th year in 2015. I then went onto study Applied Sport Science at Edinburgh University while still playing at Melrose whilst in my first year as well as for EULRFC.
I then gained my first cap in the 6N in 2016 against England at home. I’m now living in France as a stage 3 BT Academy player playing for LMRCV.
Football for Hearts? How did that sit in rugby-mad Border country?
The Borders is a rugby mad place but I always played football as well and started to play it properly for Hawick youth when I began High School. Going on to play for Hearts U15/17s and development team. I never gave up rugby, it was always priority but, when I was growing up, at U15 and U18 level there weren’t many games throughout the season for us, maybe 3/4 a season so, on weekends off from rugby, I played football so I was still playing sport and keeping active.
12 International caps and now a Professional contract. Dream come true?
It is a dream come true. A few months ago I couldn’t even imagine this happening and, now I am here, it still doesn’t seem real. I have taken an interruption of studies from my degree at Edinburgh just now whilst I am in France, as I wanted to solely focus on rugby. It is difficult to do both as I found out in my first year at university. Trying to juggle the high demands of work from both lecturers and coaches proves tiring and leaves little time for a life outside of this but, it’s doable if you apply yourself to both. However, the hard work on and off the pitch has been completely worth it to be rewarded with a professional contract.
Image of Lisa playing for Edinburgh University courtesy of Rugby People
