Luca Bardelli – From Braidholm to Millbrae to Scotstoun

Luca called GHA home until he was 21- years old making his way through the pathway at the club from the minis section where he started at age four all the way to the men’s 1st XV team.

“My dad played rugby his whole life, so I think I got into it because of him. GHA is my local club, it’s about 10 minutes from my house and it has a huge mini section. It’s a big club, so there’s quite a good atmosphere about the place and you just end up knowing absolutely everyone there.”

Luca dabbled in various sports in his youth, playing football and competing in judo to a high level. However, it was when he entered secondary school that he decided to focus his attention on rugby, and he hasn’t turned back since playing for both his school, St Aloysius’ College and local club GHA.

“We had a really successful U18 team, and we made it all the way to the Scottish Cup Final but unfortunately, we couldn’t play because of Covid. My first year in senior rugby I went straight to the 1st XV, I had one really good game and then three quite poorly played games, so I dropped back down to the 2nd XV on confidence alone and then I kept going back and forth between the two for a while.”

After finding his feet in the GHA 1st XV team, Luca had a successful stint with the club but found himself wanting to expand his rugby horizons. That opportunity came in the shape of the Ayrshire Bulls.

“I was just expecting to play and finish my season at GHA, but I got a phone call from my coach saying that the Bull’s Head Coach Pat McArthur wants to have a chat with me, so I had a call with Pat the next day and he asked me to come along and have a trial.”

Luca during a 2023 FOSROC Super Series Sprint match against Stirling Wolves at Millbrae. Image Credit: George McMillan

Luca has Ayrshire Bulls Team Manager Gordon Kotze to thank for that phone call as it was Gordon who put the word in Pat’s ear about the young winger.

“It’s quite funny actually but apparently Pat was told “You need to see this guy, he plays for GHA, he’s quick, he’ll score tries but he weighs about 50 kilos” – I guess maybe he saw a couple clips of me playing and thought sure let’s go for it.”

Making the move to Super Series rugby was daunting at first for the 21-year-old as he joined the squad ahead of the 2023 FOSROC Super Series Sprint.

“When I joined the Bulls at first, I thought I wasn’t physically there and then I realised that I needed to scrap that mentality and just do what I’m good at which is playing and beating people in the space of 5 meters – that’s my thing and that’s really helped me.

“Initially I came in not as aggressive on the pitch but even with training and the games so far, now I find myself to be much more aggressive playing wise on the field. Because you have to be, in a Super Series game if you’re off the mark by even half a second you will just get folded and pushed out the way pretty easily.”

Luca during a 2023 FOSROC Super Series Championship match against the FOSROC Future XV at Millbrae. Image Credit: George McMillan

Luca started all seven of the matches in this year’s FOSROC Super Series Sprint and scored four tries for the Millbrae outfit during the tournament. He is now catching up with himself in this year’s FOSROC Super Series Championship with three tries currently to his name out of the seven games he has featured in.

“What’s been good is that I feel I’ve been trusted quite a lot, I feel like I came in and Pat went just do what you think is right. The amount of opportunity I have been given to showcase what I can do has just gave me a massive confidence boost in my ability to execute on a rugby pitch.”

Luca soon caught the eye of Glasgow Warriors and in September he was invited to join the pro-team for some of their pre-season training sessions.

“It was a bit mad – Pat just called me up and I was just up out of bed, and he told me I was going to get a call from a guy at Glasgow.”

“The training session was intense. Normally at Bulls you do training Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and you maybe do about an hour of analysis and then an hour of training. Then going to Scotstoun, I was there from about 7:45am in the morning till 4:00pm doing multiple rugby sessions, multiple gym sessions, breakfast and lunch in between so it was full on, plus they’re in pre-season so it’s extra hard.”

“The quality and the level of the training was incredible, and I didn’t feel out of place if you know what I mean. I thought initially ‘am I putting on a shirt I don’t deserve’ but actually I thought I can do this, and it just felt natural.”

After impressing at training and with his performance on the pitch for Ayrshire Bulls, Bardelli got the call up to the bench for Glasgow Warriors in their pre-season friendly match against Zebre Parma at Scotstoun on Saturday 30 September.

Coming onto the pitch in the second half, Luca made quite the entrance scoring one of the tries that would then help Warriors go on to win the match 33-29.

After having his first taste of professional rugby, Luca is eager to prove himself and hopes for further call-ups in the future.

“I’ve played rugby for fun my whole life. I’ve turned up and done the gym week in, week out, trained and played on rubbish pitches in the back end of nowhere in every weather. For someone to come along and say we’ll give you some money to come and play a game you love, you’ll get top training, top nutrition, top facilities, that’s not a job that’s the dream.”