Tuttosi enjoys award-winning season

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/05/2021 (1846 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Emily Tuttosi is living proof that sometimes hard work and doing things the right way will be rewarded.

The 25-year-old Souris product was named player of the year for the Exeter Chiefs in the Allianz Premier 15s, the elite women’s rugby league in England.

She was delighted with the honour, which came in her third professional season.

“I’ve never been the flashy player,” said Tuttosi, who spoke via Zoom from her kitchen table in Exeter, a city of 131,000 people located 280 kilometres southwest of London. “I’ve never been the ‘Oh man, did you see her running down the wing and score that try?’ That’s never been me and will probably never be me. But it is nice to know that it is noticed when you put your head down and do your job and encourage your teammates.

“They’re all little things that I have just naturally done because I love rugby and love all of us succeeding as a team. Getting noticed is pretty special but it was really unexpected. The surprise factor really added to it.”

It’s been a long journey that has taken her from Souris to Calgary to England, but it’s also been a fulfilling one.

She first took up the game of mini rugby at age eight in Souris with her twin sister Amy.

“We had an older brother (Brendynn) and he played, so that might have been part of it,” Tuttosi said. “Me and Amy were both very aggressive so rugby just seemed like a good option. Once we started, we never looked back.”

The sisters both became four-year starters in Grade 9 for the Souris Sabres program, which was coached by Brian Yon, who had instructed them since they were newcomers to the sport.

He proved to be an important influence.

“It was Yon saying ‘I think you can do this, you should try this’ and I was like ‘Ya, I’ll give it a try. What’s the worst that can happen?’” Tuttosi said, noting he invited her to a provincial under-19 team tryout when she was 15. “He said ‘Come to this tryout, I don’t know how it’s going to go for you but it will be a good experience.’ I ended up making the squad. It was a lot of saying yes and then working hard to get to the next step to the next step.”

She said Yon’s importance lay well beyond the fact that he coached at the provincial level and knew university coaches. If she ever began to doubt her abilities, he was one of the people who picked her up by reassuring her that she belonged.

“That helped carry me over here,” Tuttosi said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t deserve to be here and people like Brian Yon and many others along my journey have really helped instil that in me. If I doubted myself I can look back on all the work I’ve put in instead of felling that lack of confidence.”

She also had the advantage of sharing the experiences with Amy. At times they played together in the front row for Souris and Manitoba. It’s somehow a perfect metaphor for the sport itself.

“Rugby is just a sport that has such a community feel,” Tuttosi said. “Even when she took a step back from university stuff and playing club and I was still chasing other stuff, rugby is a cool sport that once you’re in it, you’re in it, regardless of what your capacity. I think that’s something we’ll always share, our love of rugby regardless of whether we’re both actually playing it or not.”

Emily Tuttosi played for Manitoba four times, once for a Manitoba-Saskatchewan team and several times for Wolfpack, the combined Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta club.

“I love representing, whether it was just Manitoba or the Prairies, but being the Manitoba girl on the Prairies team,” Tuttosi said. “I’m always proud of where I come from.”

Tuttosi said the provincial experience helped her move to the next level because it pushed her out of her comfort zone.

After graduating high school in 2013, she followed some former Sabres to play with the University of Calgary. Her sister, Amy, meanwhile, headed east to Nova Scotia to join the Acadia Axewomen.

The next step proved to be another good one for her game.

“At university I got even more opportunities,” Tuttosi said. “At times, it was ‘How am I going to fit all this in?” or ‘How am I going to do all this?’ but it was kind of where there’s a will, there’s a way … The biggest thing was just saying yes and then figuring out a plan to do it.”

She said her university experience — Tuttosi graduated in 2018 with a bachelor of science in kinesiology — helped her to improve on the foundation she built in Souris. A combination of an extremely competitive Canada West division, success that earned the Dinosaurs their first banner and the introduction of a more focused, professional environment drove her game to new heights. She was a four-time Canada West all-star and an all-Canadian in 2016.

In high school, the five-foot-seven Tuttosi played a lot of flank but since has mostly lined up at hooker, which is right in the middle of the action in the front line.

Tuttosi was on Rugby Canada’s radar all along, playing on national teams at the under-18 and U20 levels. At age 22, she got a taste of the game at the highest level, earning her first cap with the national senior women’s rugby team in 2017.

She said it’s a surreal feeling to represent your country.

“When you get invited that’s super exciting, but there is just an overwhelming amount of ‘I want to be the best I can be,’” Tuttosi said. “You almost go into like you can’t miss. You have to tell yourself that you were chosen for a reason … Ultimately it is a huge honour.”

Since then, she’s been a part of the larger training group, but hasn’t had another opportunity to suit for the Canadian squad. The team hasn’t had a chance to practise together since November 2019 because of COVID, but there is a possibility a training camp could be held by the end of the summer.

“From a personal point of view, my goal is to be invited to the next training camp, whether it’s a top 50 or not,” Tuttosi said. “It’s unclear what will be possible. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later because the World Cup is just over a year away now and it would be nice to be together and training.”

After graduating from Calgary, Tuttosi began to mull over her options. Dinosaurs head coach Simon Chi was a massive help because he knew the coach of the Loughborough Lightning, which also plays in the Allianz Premier 15s.

Tuttosi headed over, made the club and spent two seasons in Loughborough, which is 180 kilometres north of London.

“It’s a rugby culture,” Tuttosi said of the sport in England. “There is just so much more rugby everywhere here. It’s been around longer and it’s more popular.”

She said her teammates couldn’t believe she had to pay her national team expenses, which is covered elsewhere. On a lighter note, Tuttosi said that during road trips, if they were going to be travelling for three hours, the bus stopped to allow the players to stretch their legs, something that puzzled a woman from the Canadian Prairies accustomed to long drives.

On the field, it’s also different. It’s a higher level of club than is played anywhere in Canada, and a longer season too.

“You definitely have to look at how you manage your athletes over an eight-month period,” Tuttosi said. “It’s been cool to learn and experience.”

After the 2020 season ended, she decided to come back to Canada. Unfortunately, that quickly hit a COVID-related snag that delayed her return.

“When it first hit, I got to isolate on this side because my roommate was one of the first people to have it here,” Tuttosi said. “Then I went back to Canada because borders were closing and everyone was unsure what was happening.”

She spent five months at home before returning to the United Kingdom for the new season and a new team in September.

Tuttosi enjoyed her time in Loughborough but moved to an expansion club, the Exeter Chiefs. A big part of the change was what it would allow her to do both on and off the field.

“With the opportunity that presented itself with Chiefs, and what my current opportunity was at Lightning, when this opportunity opened up, it was just the better one,” Tuttosi said. “Lifestyle-wise it was also a sweet change, living near the coast. I’ve never lived near water before, and it’s really fun. It was a new program so it was obviously a risk because you never know if a new program is going to hold or is the team is going to hold, but you say yes when a good opportunity presents itself and it’s definitely paid off.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time.”

The Chiefs went 2-5 to start but then rallied for a seven-game winning streak. The expansion club ultimately went 10-8 and finished sixth, missing the playoffs but beating all four teams that ended up in the post-season.

“We were off to a rough start,” Tuttosi said. “There were a handful of us who were out of quarantine for one week before our first game so it was just matter of trying to amalgamate and learn and gel, and obviously we hadn’t played rugby in months either because of COVID. Our first couple of games weren’t the strongest and then we all — the staff and players — knew we were good enough to beat these teams.”

Exeter had a number of tight wins, and while they didn’t advance, Tuttosi believes they’ve made an imprint on the league.

So did she. Tuttosi believes her personal success came because she finally had the chance to demonstrate her entire game, which allowed her to have a lot of success.

“I was able to showcase that I can be a threat on attack and defence,” Tuttosi said. “In the past sometimes, whether it was just other girls who were bigger at carrying and I was just clearing out. This year I was able to be more of a dynamic threat on the ball as well. That’s the biggest change from the last couple of years. You weren’t just noticing me for doing the dirty work.”

COVID had an impact on the games, with adjusted rules set up to limit prolonged contact.

The games were cut from 80 minutes to 70, and instead of scrums for knock-ons or forward passes, free kicks were made. In a game, there were a maximum of three scrums, and mauls were only allowed at the 22-yard line, which changed the strategy a bit.

She said it also had a drastic impact on the feeling of community the sport creates, with Zoom meetings replacing some of the time the players would have spent together.

“Technology is great but it’s not the same as being in person,” Tuttosi said.

They also had to wear masks in the gym, and were restricted to working out with the same one or two people. But she and her teammates understood why the league protocols were in place.

“If one person on your team goes into quarantine, probably a bunch of people do,” Tuttosi said. “It was very different.”

Things are opening up a bit in public, she said, noting if you go for groceries everyone in the store is wearing a mask because it’s mandatory.

Tuttosi does a bit of work for the club as well to support herself, including some coaching. In previous seasons, she worked a lot but she would need a certain type of visa to do that now. As a result, the club takes care of more now.

She is staying in Exeter, noting it’s easier than coming home right now, joking she’s “going to live my best British summer life.”

Tuttosi took two weeks completely off after the season. Despite the constant rain, she has been able to go for some nice walks and take in the scenery. Even as the team returns to the gym in preparation for the pre-season to begin in late June, she doesn’t have to be completely mentally dialled in just yet.

While she misses her family and home in what’s been an unprecedented period in recent history, she deems it a price she has to pay for the opportunity to live a dream.

“There are always going to be times where it’s “At home, there’s this’ or stuff happening,” Tuttosi said. “Thankfully you can keep in touch. Even going to university in Calgary was a decent ways away so it’s not totally foreign to be far away. It’s just so worth it to be here. I can’t play rugby forever and these opportunities are once in a lifetime basically. Even on the days I feel a little far away, I can call home but also realize that this is where I want to be for my current goals.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @perryBergson