Ella Russell, 17, says when she started playing it was hard to find enough players for a team.
A rugby-mad 17-year-old has said women and girls still struggle to find rugby teams to play for at a junior level.
Ella Russell, a second row player from Shrewsbury Rugby Club, was speaking a week after England won the Women's Rugby World Cup and said the women's game had a great sense of community.
But she said: "I know a lot of girls like me, from loads of different areas like across Birmingham, Wales, different parts of the country, have to travel regularly."
"It's such a shame because the girls who play regularly want to be there and they want to put that time in and they're really passionate about the sport," she added.
Ahead of the Rugby World Cup, England Rugby said it had spent millions of pounds supporting clubs with their facilities and their coaching.
It said its aim was to have 100,000 female players by 2027 and that "the women's game in England is already flourishing from the grassroots level".
Ms Russell said she became interested in the sport 10 years ago, because her father was a coach and her brother played.
She finally decided to try rugby in 2021, when she had been doing her Duke of Edinburgh award and was challenged to take up a sport.
'Everybody comes together'
Before playing the game she said she was "terrified" of the idea because of the physical contact and because "you're sort of brought up to think its a boys' sport".
She said: "I've never been a sporty girl, I've never been super-athletic, I tried all the different sports in PE and I never really found one that clicked."
When she was first tackled she said she cried, but the thing that made her stick with it was the community.
At her first session she found other the other girls wanted to include her in their group straight away.
"Everybody comes together because of that same adversity," she said, "We all have that same passion."
She also said she believed in many sports her body-type is "not appreciated," but in rugby being tall and strong was valued.
Ms Russell now plays for Shrewsbury's senior team, wants to go on and play rugby at university and has also become a coach.
She said she wanted to use her enthusiasm for the game to welcome in other girls.
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