Height, nationality or sex; it doesn’t really matter to Emilee Cherry. I am half Scottish, half French and half Australian. But, I was born to play rugby. I played the sport as a kid growing up near Melbourne, Australia, and was part of the swim team. It was a very physical sport – running, lifting, throwing, tackling, kicking, diving etc. As a result, I was always naturally inclined to a game of rugby, particularly when I was younger.
Then, after moving to England, I began playing for Australia in the English National School Athletic Association, which is not a very popular sport in Great Britain. It’s known as “rollers” because they use their feet, but also use their hands in many other ways. After some time playing in this league, I became quite competitive, especially when I became a senior player. I went on to play at University of New Zealand, where I represented the Hurricanes for two years and then the Springboks for a year before moving into coaching. During that time, I was very aware of the difference between playing professionally and playing for fun.
So, when it came to choosing my sport as a career, I knew I wanted to be a full-time player. I also knew I wanted to be taller than most, so that I could stay in the team. So, I trained very hard in the gym and tried a lot of different things. Finally I decided to use height therapy to help me achieve my goal. Height is important because it gives you confidence, but mainly as a personality trait, because it would be very hard to have confidence if you were not tall!