Rugby and agriculture have often gone hand in hand but for Scotland player Emma Orr, it’s more than just a community.
Emma grew up on her family’s farm, Wester Walston in Biggar, helping out with the Texels, Limousins and British Blue crosses alongside her three siblings. In their spare time, the Orrs could be found at Biggar Rugby Club as Emma’s dad James used to play there.
She took up the sport in Primary four but stopped a few years later when there was no girls’ team at her school. It was the late Eric Shearer who got Emma back into the sport, coaching the Biggar U15s girls’ team where the squad won the national cup.
“I owe it to Eric,” she says. “He really got me back into it at a time when I wasn’t sure there was really a place for me. I got my first cap playing for Biggar, and my dad and all my siblings have played for Biggar.”
It was when Emma started competing in national sevens tournaments that she started to get recognised by the Scottish team. She was scouted to play for the U18s Scottish sevens team but just before national selection she was told she was too young. So it wasn’t until the next year that she got the chance to represent the national squad in the U18s tournament.
Emma was then picked out by senior women’s sevens coach at the time, Chris Laidlaw, for the senior sevens squad alongside other notable players such as Megan Gaffney and Rhona Lloyd to play in the 2021 Rugby Europe Sevens Series.
“Covid was still a concern and I was picked as a reserve for the team in case of illness or injury. I was conflicted because I obviously wanted to play but I didn’t want anything to happen to my teammates either. I got the call to go to Lisbon when I was at Lanark mart of all places, I think after selling at a fat sale, and I was just about to leave. It was better that way honestly because I didn’t have time to overthink it – I just had to go to Lisbon and represent my team.”
From there, Emma made it into the senior women’s 15s squad, gaining her first cap in the 2022 Women’s Six Nations opener, playing at 13, in Wales just before her 19th birthday.
“The only thing about the Six Nations is that it is bang in the middle of lambing time so when I got my first cap my parents couldn’t come down to Wales to see me play. They did, however, get away long enough to see me at Scotstoun for my second game.”
Apart from the poor timing of tournaments, Emma believes that rugby and farming easily cross over.
“I think it helps when you aren’t afraid to get stuck in and get muddy,” she says. “Also my initial skill and strength came from helping out on the farm whether from manual labour or catching sheep. I think I’d rather tackle a person over a Texel though.”
Outside of rugby, Emma’s love is her sheep – most specifically her flock of Blue Texels.
“As a kid I always would say to my parents that I wanted to go to Holland and they would be so confused,” she recalls. “I had read somewhere that Blue Texels came from Holland and I wanted to have my own one.
They compromised by taking me to Carlisle so I could buy my own and now I have 30 ewes.
"I do try to be at all the shows and sales, but naturally I am quite busy with training camps or tournaments so I have my brother helping me out despite the fact he hates Blue Texels!”
Emma did, however, make it to Kelso Ram Sales last September and has also managed to sell some shearlings at Carlisle.
“I was quite proud to sell one of my shearlings for 2000gns at Carlisle which might not be so impressive to some but coming from a small hobby flock – I think it’s pretty good going.”
Despite having a childhood spent showing stock at local shows, Emma has had to take more of a back seat due to her training commitments.
“I had sheep shown at Biggar, Peebles and Carnwath shows but the latter I had to miss because I was away at a sevens training camp. I was gutted I missed out because my favourite tup lamb won best tup lamb and male inter-breed champion – and I wasn’t there.”
When asked if her fellow teammates could relate to such conflicts, Emma confirms she is the only one on the team directly connected to farming.
“I love my team but yeah, they really don’t understand it,” she says. “I will try to explain stockjudging to them and you can just see their brains completely baffled.
“I remember sharing with a roommate and we had been watching Clarkson’s Farm and she kept asking all these questions. It’s good that these programmes are out there normalising what we do because you forget that most people don’t have an understanding.”
With a childhood spent on the farm, Emma has fond memories of everything they got up to but there was one particular moment Emma recalls.
“I remember we were watching rodeo bull riding on the TV and then it was followed by something called mutton busting which was a similar thing but with children riding sheep,” she says.
“I was quite young at the time and I thought it looked like fun so I begged my dad to let me try it. It was around marking time and he grabbed me and put me on a sheep in the raceway, and told me to hold on. I just remember I went flying through the raceway on this sheep.”
Emma is now based in Edinburgh as she is currently in her third year at SRUC studying agriculture.
Since starting university, she plays rugby for Heriots and has recently been representing Edinburgh Rugby in the Women’s Celtic Challenge competition against Glasgow Warriors and four other teams from Wales and Ireland.
“I try to get back to the farm every weekend if I can but obviously it’s busy while I am still studying and playing rugby, especially just now with the Celtic Challenge.
"The event is in its second year but this is the first year it has expanded with the two Scottish teams. It is great seeing it get the same attention as the women’s internationals and hopefully we will see it return, but nothing has been confirmed.”
For now, Emma is just hoping to keep progressing with her rugby career and hopefully do something in agricultural part-time once she finishes her course.
“I would like my own farm one day, I think, but for now I am still actively involved at Wester Walston and I will always be welcome to help out once my dad retires. Right now my main focus is rugby and completing my college coursework.”
Last year, Emma was picked as Scotland’s women’s player of the year and has recently been announced in the Scotland training squad for Guinness Six Nations.
Hoping to be in the starting line-up when the competition returns with Wales v Scotland on March 23.
You can catch Emma and the rest of the Scotland team in action as they take on France (March 30) and England (April 13) in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations at the Hive Stadium, Edinburgh.
Tickets are available from ScottishRugby.org
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