St.Helens Women are delighted to announce Hollie Bawden has joined the Club from Sale Sharks Women for the 2025 Women’s Rugby League season!
This news was first exclusively revealed in the Club’s free match e-programme Saints & Proud – click here to read!
The 24-year-old has been playing rugby union since being a teenager with Eccles RFC before moving to Loughborough to play alongside her studies for a degree in sports therapy.
Bawden has earned representative honours with Lancashire and the North of England Under 18s team before joining Sale Sharks Women in 2020 when the team was first formed, and she has been there ever since. She also played alongside fellow Saint Rachael Woosey during her time with Sale in 2023, and now re-links back up with her at the Totally Wicked Stadium.
Hollie got her first hit-out as a Saint in the Red V’s pre-season friendly victory over Warrington Wolves, even scoring in a strong 60-0 showing too. Now, she is raring to go into her first league season and add more competition to our Women’s team.
“I’m really excited! It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” Bawden told saintsrlfc.com.
“I’m a local girl being from just down the road and I’ve always known about Saints – my uncle’s a big Saints fan and I’ve watched league since I was younger. I wanted to give it a go and have a try, so I thought why not come to the best club?
“I think how I play the game, how I like to use my strengths I think will be really transferable into league, so I think that’s going to be helpful.”
Knowing there is plenty of competition in the positions she could play, whether it is back-row or centre, Hollie’s motivated to make her mark and fit into our squad.
“I know coming here was going to be a challenge, there’s some of the best players here and I’d have to work hard to keep up to standard. That’s exciting. Hearing about Craig and Dek, that was another thing that excited me and in my time already I feel I’ve learned a lot.”
Joint Head Coach of St.Helens Women Craig Richards spoke about the addition of Hollie Bawden and said: “It’s fantastic news, it’s taken us a little bit of time to get her over the line, but it’s great to have her on board. Hollie adds something really different to the squad because she is explosive.
“We see her being more than capable of playing in the outside backs or in the back-row for us, and she has been one of the stars for Sale Sharks and it’s good to get her over playing rugby league for the first time.”
