Sevens rugby players are runners. They’re fit, hard, athletic sports people. Their bodies are fat-less and trim – strong thighs, cut calves. They’re not fit like competitive body-sculptors or cross-fit types. Sevens players are purpose-built to run.
We’re watching the Australian women’s team train at the Sydney Academy of Sport and Recreation in Narrabeen. It’s a couple of days before the team flies out for Rio. And though they’ve been doing this stuff coming up three years, there is alacrity in their work.
Fitness man Craig Twentyman has them leaping over little hurdles, landing and shooting off again – bang. It’s about “reacting to the ground”. Sprinters need to explode out the blocks, to think of their feet shooting off the ground as if electrocuted – crack – creating flinty sparks off the mark.
They run 50-metre shuttles. Techniques are good. They’re not woolly, arms everywhere, heads back like fleeing meerkats. It’s clear they’ve been taught how to run: high knees, piston arms, hands like karate chops. And under pressure of fatigue, techniques hold up. They are runners.
They are also world champions and favourites for gold. And if you don’t know much about them now, chances are you will. Because this Australian women’s team, the first ever to train professionally, full-time, in camp, has changed the way women’s rugby is played. They are the vanguard of the very game.
Women’s sevens was once quite similar to 15s – big units charged down field, barged into the line, rucked, mauled, and did it again. The Australians, though, infused with quick, athletic players from touch footy and other sports, and fitter than they’ve been in their lives, spread the ball, use their skills, and run all day. And they’re very good to watch.
“The style of play is something we’ve created,” says co-captain Sharni Williams. “It’s more of an intelligent game. There’s a full-size field, the same as 15s, so it just makes sense. If you’ve got three players in front of you there’s got to be space wider out. So move it there and go. You want people who can pass left and right, who can switch, who can up their pace.”
Williams credits Twentyman, coach Tim Walsh and assistant coach Scott Bowen with plenty of ideas. But it’s the women who own it.
“Playing up-tempo means we can get to the breakdown quicker, retain the ball quicker, have the ball in hand quicker,” says Williams. “It’s how we like to play.”
I’m going to the Olympics.’ Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Williams says the women are very aware they’re pioneers of their sport. And they’re comfortable with that. “There’s a real focus on leaving a legacy. We love the sport and love playing with each other and we’d like other people to experience that.
“For us growing up there was no pathway to get involved. And we came from a lot of different sports and had different skills. But we had to learn to tackle and all the rest. Imagine girls of eight years old having that pathway, it’ll be amazing for them.
“The game is just going to evolve. Massively. The Wallabies, they start as boys. Imagine if girls could do that.”
They don’t have to now. It’s happening. Since sevens was announced as an Olympic sport, women’s participation in rugby has surged. According to ARU chief executive Bill Pulver, “including women playing club rugby, in schools, and girls who participated in [introductory program] Game On, just over 28,000 girls picked up and ran with a rugby ball in 2015.”
Pulver says there are “4,000 women and girls competing in regular sevens competition. There’s another 1,600 regularly playing in traditional XVs competition across the country.”
“We are certain that any success they have in Rio will have a game-changing effect on the entire landscape of women’s sport. As a young girl considering what sport to play, not only is there an established World Series in sevens rugby, there is now the ultimate carrot of becoming an Olympian and having a chance to compete on sport’s ultimate stage.
“We also have verbal agreement from World Rugby to host a women’s World Series tournament in Sydney, which will run alongside the men’s tournament in one three-day event at Allianz Stadium in February next year.”
All good. But those Olympic rings are the sport’s greatest carrot. Being an Olympic sport means AOC boss John Coates will ensure tax-payers’ coin is spent on you to train full-time. Particularly if you’re a good chance to bring home the bullion.
With full-time professionalism, the women themselves are being transformed. Look at former touch player Charlotte Caslick. Since crossing over she’s become one of the best in the world. Great physique. A runner and tidy mover. She played touch footy for Australia. But the Olympics was “a massive drawcard”.
“The pathways in rugby were huge,” says Caslick. “Playing touch I’d pretty much done everything by the time I was 16. It was time to challenge myself with something new.”
And so into the program she went. Eating, training, playing, repeat. All on-site. It’s hard to over-state the importance of it. In a full-time program Caslick can spend every day in the gym or on the training paddock. Williams doesn’t have to be a mechanic during the day and train at night.
Both women used the term “privilege” when describing their training environment. Says Caslick: “It’s not a new sport but it’s new that women are playing it professionally. And I know I speak on behalf of all the girls that we want to change rugby, change the world of women’s rugby.
“And we can do that if we do well at Rio, and in the future at Commonwealth Games in Australia. We’ll get a lot of support if we do well.”
It’s happening now. Caslick’s Instagram receives messages from little girls every day, her name is in their bios. “It’s surreal, I’m just normal,” she says. “I can’t really imagine myself thinking of people as I used to think of Cathy Freeman. It’s pretty cool.
“And I’m glad we’re inspiring girls to play. It’s so much fun. And we travel the world with our friends.”
Watching from the sideline I find myself envious. Not just because they’re going to Rio de Janeiro to compete for Australia in the Games of the XXXIst Olympiad – though admittedly that would be really, really good. But they’re so prime, these people. They’re in their 20s, the fittest they’ve ever been, among friends they’ll have forever. And they’re creating a sport, even a movement. You wonder if they know how good they’ve got it. Even can they know.
Williams does. “I’ve got a board near my bed that’s got a lot of things I want to achieve. It’s a goal-setting thing. And every morning morning when I wake up and I look at the board and I think, I’m going to the Olympics.
“We’ve been training for three years, waiting for it. We’ve been here professionally at Narrabeen for two-and-a-half years. And one of the things we always talk about is choices. We’re big on choices. And we’ve made a choice to be part of the family we’ve created here. It’s a family here in Narrabeen with the girls.
“To think that we’re all flying out for Rio together … I pinch myself every day.”
Back on the paddock and there’s further physical work. They drive into pads, hit the ground, shoot off the ground again. There’s work with the ball, and repeat efforts out of the mud. Walsh is a voice, cajoling, encouraging. “Dynamic! Be dynamic!”
They play a game – gold shirts versus green bibs (“Fiji”). Their game play is all angles, show-and-go, ball in two hands. It’s ad lib yet rehearsed – they’ve done this so many times the last three years. They switch, they move. They stretch their VO2 capacity. And they do it all close to flat out for seven minutes. Women’s sevens has never been played like this.
Walsh blows his whistle and they come into a huddle. And then they run again. It’s what they do.
