Canada second-row Tyson Beukeboom has revealed how her move to Ealing Trailfinders and Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) was driven by a desire not to be left behind.
Beukeboom will celebrate her 10th anniversary as an international player later this month, but she is still keen to learn and improve, and intends to extend her playing career to Rugby World Cup 2025 and beyond.
Following Canada’s run to the fourth place at RWC 2021, her third experience of the showpiece tournament, the 32-year-old felt the best way to do that was to move abroad.
Her national team coach, Kévin Rouet has forged close relationships with counterparts at club sides in England and France and is therefore able to act as a de-facto agent for his players.
And as soon as she sat down with Ealing’s Director of Women’s Rugby, Giselle Mather, Beukeboom was committed to the Trailfinders project.
“I’m really, really excited,” she said. “Ealing is brand new, and I’m really excited to see what the team does this season.
“I think we’ve got a solid group and Giselle seems like an awesome coach. I’m just really, really excited to get over there and get building with the team and see what we can do and where we can go. I’m also excited to be part of the Premiership.
“Obviously, not having a domestic league in Canada, I just felt after the last World Cup, the way that women’s rugby is going, if I don’t go play pro somewhere, I’m going to be left behind and I don’t want that to happen. I’m not ready to be done.”
Beukeboom is currently part of the Canada squad preparing for the final two rounds of the World Rugby Pacific Four Series 2023 in Ottawa and has no shortage of team-mates to turn to when seeking out advice on her move to London.
The second-row says she expects a tough, physical challenge in PWR and has “only heard good things” from those she has consulted about her new coach.
“She seems to know everyone, and everyone seems to know her,” Beukeboom says of Mather and that is something that excites a player for whom squad morale is important.
“One of her big things is team culture and that’s one of my biggest values,” Beukeboom added. “I want to be a part of a team that works well together and works hard together and works for each other, which is what we do for the Canadian national team.
“So, in my meeting with her, that was one of the points that she made. And as soon as she said that I was pretty much sold right away. That’s kind of my core value in a team.”
Beukeboom’s impending switch to Ealing was confirmed last month and she has been impressed with the squad Mather and her staff are in the process of building for their maiden PWR season.
The headline arrival, so far, has been England winger Abby Dow, someone Beukeboom knows having watched her streak away to score a scintillating try in England’s RWC 2021 semi-final win against Canada last year.
“She did get World Rugby Try of the Year against us, so that’s a bit of a bitter pill to swallow,” Beukeboom, who also crossed the whitewash in the 26-19 defeat, joked.
“But no, I’m excited to play with such a high-ranking player, it’s going to be great. I mean, she’s a winger and I’m a lock – hopefully there’s something I can learn from her!
“We might not see a lot of each other on the field, but I hope to make some new friends and make some new connections and learn some things from other teams, other nations, and just build a great programme.”
Canada’s run to the RWC 2021 semi-finals, in which they were the last remaining amateur team, highlighted the difficulties facing the North American nation.
The team needs to compete with, and beat, the world’s best in order to build a fanbase and revenue streams that could one day support a professional domestic league. But without that domestic structure, that task is increasingly difficult.
“It’s hard because obviously we’re one of the nations that don’t have a professional league and that makes keeping that momentum (from RWC 2021) hard,” Beukeboom said.
“But we do a good job of getting our foot into other professional leagues as a team so we can kind of maintain the high level of competition.
“Everyone’s getting really strong competition, whether that’s domestically or overseas. But obviously, without everyone being in Canada, it’s harder to get together more often.
“So, that’s something that we’re looking forward to, is having contracts and being a professional side ourselves as a country and then also having a domestical league so we can get together a lot more often.”
Beukeboom is hopeful those contracts could arrive “sooner rather than later” but for now she is just focused on helping Canada to maintain their standing in the international game by qualifying for WXV 1.
Having beaten the USA in April they are well placed to do just that as TD Place Stadium prepares to host the final two rounds of the 2023 Pacific Four Series.
But Beukeboom will not be happy with Canada – who play the Black Ferns on Saturday and Australia six days later – merely securing their place in WXV 1 this October and November. She wants to head to New Zealand as Pacific Four Series champions.
“We don’t want to settle and be complacent with just being in the top three,” Beukeboom said. “We want to be the top team and that’s our goal here, is to come out of the PAC4 tournament on the top.
“So, we’re just going to keep pushing and that’s our goal as a team. We want to be the best.”
