Louise Galvin: Why Women’s Sevens is now in vogue

A year ago, I contributed a column to this newspaper from the same venue as now, the Sydney Academy of Sport and Recreation in Narrabeen, prior to playing the Australian Women’s 7s rugby team in a set of exhibition games during the men’s leg of the HSBC world series.

Australia is synonymous with sporting achievement and it is clear why. Jet lag encouraged some unusually early morning rises for me this week and walking around the Academy of Sport at 6am, the venue is already a hive of activity, with rowers being put through their paces on the lake, kids in various summer camps, and all ages pounding the pavements or the tennis courts. That’s all before the professional rugby 7s and rugby league teams take to the pitches. Of course, it is a balmy 20 degrees at this time of year, a luxury we don’t experience in Ireland.

The Australian women’s 7s rugby team are the latest team to capture Wallaby hearts, their meteoric rise reflective of the game itself worldwide. The introduction of 7s rugby to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after an absence of 100 years ensured the continued exponential growth of this fast and exhilarating sport. Audiences tuned in all around the globe to marvel as 12 teams in both genders vie for Olympic gold.

The women’s medals went true to form following completion of the HSBC women’s world series where champions Australia beat runners up New Zealand to the gold medal in a game deserving of an Olympic final platform. Unfortunately the men’s final was played in wet conditions but the weather failed to dampen the occasion as crowd favourites Fiji barnstormed surprise finalists Great Britain to take home their country’s first ever Olympic medal. For those of you who’ve never seen the Fijian men’s 7s rugby team, think Harlem Globetrotters but with substance. The skilful, off-the- cuff, enthralling brand of rugby they play is matched only by the infectious smiles on their faces. In a world where professional and even amateur sport have become more and more about key performance indicators, video analysis, and stats, here is a team that epitomises the simple pleasure that sport brings.

Where were the Irish when the rest of the Sevens world was showcasing its wares in Rio? Although we are a core team in the 12-country world series, qualification for Rio was a more difficult affair as Olympic culture dictates each continent must be represented proportionally. Like the 15-person game, Europe is a stronghold in Sevens rugby, but not in the traditional power bases. In the Sevens game, Russia and Spain hold particular strength. Without securing direct Olympic qualification through Europe or the World Series, our attention turned to nailing the last qualification spot in a world repechage competition last June, which we hosted. We came up short against pre-tournament favourites Russia in the semi-final, who in turn were defeated by a cohesive Spanish outfit in the final.

The men’s sevens squad also qualified for the Olympic repechage qualifier where much of the stronger opposition were full-time professional outfits. They lost out to Spain, who just like their female counterparts, took the final qualifying spot.

Personally, 2016 turned into ‘annus horribilis’ as the rest of my year was blighted by injury. An ankle fracture in March was followed by knee cartilage surgery in August, which was further compounded by an injury to the medial collateral ligament of the same knee on my return to play in November. That’s sport.

Following my ankle fracture, I wrote here about the physical and psychological effects of long-term injury on an athlete; the rehab, the doubts, the fear of not catching up with the pack and the risk of re-injury. By the time my third injury in quick succession had hit, you’d imagine I would’ve been a pro at managing the turmoil associated with being on crutches! I wouldn’t be known for my patience.

However, some aspects weighed on my mind more than others by the time my medial ligament had been stretched out like an accordion, during a ‘friendly’ game against France.

Once the extent of the injury and a timeframe for recovery had been established, I was confident in our medical team and my own ability to rehab the knee again. I knew I’d regain the necessary strength, flexibility and, within time, agility and speed as I had previously. My fears were mostly in being left behind. As previously alluded to, rugby 7s is one of the fastest growing games in the world.

The best in the world, Australia, New Zealand, are setting the bar high. The rest are improving too, including our own squad. Obviously I wanted to see my team do well, but having spent the best part of nine months rehabbing on a physio table, in a gym, running beside pitch sessions before being gradually reintroduced to team training, I had a fear of being significantly behind my peers, of not learning the valuable lessons that only playing on the World Series can teach you. This fear was certainly more apparent by the time of the third injury. I felt I was repeating first class and my friends were off to make their communion.

Having said that, on my return to play, the anxiety was overshadowed by the excitement of being back on the pitch and getting a few consecutive weeks’ training under my belt. Those few weeks of full training make the difference between just being ready to ‘play’ and being ready to ‘perform’.

A training squad of 14 Irish players are here in Sydney, and 12 will participate in the Sydney 7s next weekend, February 3-4. The training week allows us the opportunity to train against Australia and Canada, who have also flown over early. This is the inaugural year of a women’s leg of the World Series being held in Sydney and coincides with the men’s leg. The tournament will be held over three days in the 55,000-seater Allianz Stadium.

The success of the Australian women’s sevens team on the pitch has been met with significant adulation off it. It has catapulted the star players into national figures who are rolled out around the country as an inspiration to kids and adults alike. Team and individual awards have followed, as well as Vogue spreads, car deals and exploding social media accounts. Just this week the successful Olympic team were awarded the ‘Order of Australia’ medal on Australia Day to commemorate their success. Bear in mind, this is a nation that experiences significant sporting success and had 29 podium places in Rio, eight of which were gold. What this has done is helped to cement the future of the game in Australia, with young girls all over the country taking up rugby sevens hoping to emulate their heroes.

So what can we hope to achieve at the Sydney 7s next weekend? Our group has drawn us with Australia, Fiji, and Brazil. The initial aim, and one which is well within the capabilities of this team, is to make the top 8, i.e. cup quarter-finals.

Australia were beaten by New Zealand in the cup final of the first leg of the World Series in Dubai in December, and will be eager to claim the spoils in their first ever ‘home’ leg of the world series. Fiji, although not as successful as their male counterparts, play a similar style of rugby which can be difficult to defend, but we’ll be backing ourselves having played them on a few occasions over the past year. Brazil have some key players but we should be able to control possession against them and come out with a win. The beauty of Sevens, of course, is that anything can happen.

Pending selection in the final 12, I’m looking forward to my first World Series tournament in almost a year. Although each “good luck” message I receive nowadays is closely followed by “don’t get injured!”, I’m only interested in staying off the rehab list and on the playing list. I not only want to keep up with my team-mates, but make strides with them and aim to close the gap on the top tier nations.