Louise Galvin: Sobering lessons from Sao Paolo for Women’s Rugby Sevens team
IF SAO Paulo is on the bucket list, I wouldn’t bother. The largest city in South America, it is home to 10m people within the confines of the city, stretching to 20m inhabiting its hinterland. A mass concrete jungle of traffic, smog and people scurrying along dilapidated footpaths.
The weather is hot, humid and muggy. That is of course, until the thunder showers hit. I witnessed one lightning strike that wouldn’t have been out of place in Harry Potter, followed by rain cascading down flooding the streets within minutes.
There aren’t many tourist spots, unlike its illustrious neighbour, Rio de Janeiro. However, what you will get, which might entice some, is the authentic side of Brazil. Class divide was visible all around the area we were staying, particularly as we travelled from the team hotel to the training grounds, which was located a little bit farther into the poorer areas. Here, as the bus traversed through narrow inner city streets, we could observe the housing, graffiti, cars and satellite dishes (often bigger than the cars!) of the lower socio-economic elements of Sao Paulo.
There is a sense of “anything goes”, an easy going nature from the Brazilians. Our bus pulled up outside one training pitch, and a man walked down his driveway opposite us (aghast at the pale skin tones no doubt!), followed faithfully by the family pets: a dog, a cat, and, creeping nonchalantly behind them, a turtle.
Another thing that really struck me from our trip to Brazil, was the friendliness and helpfulness of the Brazilian people, even if language barriers meant serving us was like inadvertently participating in a game of “charades”.
So, down to the nitty gritty. The tournament. Observations of Sao Paulo aside, we were here to work. The second leg of the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series took place in the Arena Barueri Stadium. Drawn in a pool with Australia (who we had just had a two-week training camp with in Sydney); Canada and Fiji, we knew any victory would be classed as an upset, but that was exactly what we were planning to do.
Every team or individual athlete will tell you their training volume, intensity and load varies from day to day, week to week, and block to block. If everyone trained at the same intensity all season round, how could they expect to peak at a particular time of the season? One of the training periods I dislike most is the tapering-down period just prior to a tournament. I would just about prefer it over pre-season. No matter what sport I was playing, I hated the idea of turning up for a “light” session, a kickaround or shootaround, two days prior to a game. It’s like going to the cinema, and leaving after the trailers, told to come back two days later for the actual film. Your body is getting primed for action, and all of a sudden you are cooling down again, stretching. I do agree with the science behind it, I just don’t like doing it. I guess such a mindset explains why I’m a player and not a coach.
Near the end of our Sydney trip and for the week in Sao Paulo, we were in this tapering-down period. We trained three times in Sao Paulo in the run-up to the tournament. The aims of the initial session were to get rid of the ‘travel legs’ and get co-ordination back into our bodies, following our flight. The penultimate and final training sessions are short and sharp. Repetitions are low, but accuracy is high on the agenda. Units (forwards and backs) split up to run respective plays, and general finishing touches are applied. We had trained well against the Aussies in our last session with them in Sydney, and carried this form into our training in Sao Paulo. All in all, we were quietly confident, despite our underdogs’ tag.
Our order of games pitted us against the physical Canadians first, followed by the top seeds Australia and lastly the unpredictable Fijians. Canada did exactly what we expected them to do, with powerful direct carries and competitiveness at the ruck. Anytime we managed to hold them out or turn them over, they invariably turned it back over on us. In the end, fatigue after phase on phase of defending, led to a system breakdown where a team like Canada were always going to capitalise.
First loss.
Australia up next. At 12-5 down in the second half, having defended more than attacked, we found ourselves in possession with a decent attacking platform. Turnover... try Australia. They followed this up with a try on full-time to leave the score 19-5.
Going in to the last game against Fiji we were disheartened by the results but encouraged by parts of the performances. Analysing those matches during our rest periods, we felt fixing a few areas would set up a completely different game for us. Up 7-5 at half-time, our main aim was to keep the ball for as much of the second half as possible. Again, costly turnovers racked up and we conceded two tries to lose out 17-5.
This meant we were in the ‘bowl’ section for Day Two. Up against Russia initially, we turned in the poorest display the team has put in since I’ve joined. Analysing the game after, we could see mistake compounded with mistake in a panicky display. A term often used is ‘heads up’ rugby, i.e., playing what you see in front of you. Well this was ‘heads down’ rugby,and an embarrassing performance.
This left us in a battle with Spain for 11th/12th position. Although the performance was better than the previous match, having defended essentially for the majority of the previous games, the tanks were low. Another loss. We finished in 12th position.
Back to Ireland to lick our wounds, assess injuries and face video analysis, individual and team statistics. Let’s draw on a positive first: We aren’t that far away from beating a top team. Canada and Australia ended up competing in the final, with Australia coming out on top in the middle of a torrential downpour. Fiji finished 6th.
Our defence has improved, but it is pretty difficult to defend for almost full games against any team in this series. This leads to a vicious circle where, when you do get the ball back, you are so fatigued from defending that poor positioning, passing, carries and clear outs often lead to handing the ball right back to the opposition.
Turnovers are killing us, as possession is paramount in this, or indeed, most games. We also need to look at how we perform against the teams ranked around our current level, and the inconsistency we bring to tournaments. There is no point raising our game to play the number one-ranked team, and try to draw positives from close defeats, and then going out and bombing against teams we should be beating.
Analysis and self-reflection are a massive part of sport now. Video technology, along with GPS tracking systems, make it very difficult to hide from mistakes, as an individual and a team, and rightly so. Yes this is our first year back on the series as a core team, yes we are a relatively inexperienced team, yes we have injuries affecting the depth of our squad and we are being asked to learn at a pretty high level in a game that is still relatively new to some of us. But, as with any investment of time, funding and expertise, such as what we have been afforded, results must follow.
We can’t, as a team, say that happened in Sao Paulo.
We have five full training weeks before we depart for the next tournament, back-to-back legs of the World Series in Atlanta and Vancouver. Just like teams get into a winning vein of form, losing can be as much of a rut to get out of. I honestly feel like we are one good win away from a completely different tournament. Hopefully, we will find this in North America in April.
