By Casey O'Connor
The Australian Women’s Rugby Sevens team made it back-to-back wins in the HBSC World Rugby Sevens. After success in the first series the women were back in action last weekend in Dubai.
In their opening pool match the Australian girls defeated 40-0 and followed that win up later in the day with a 52-0 thrashing of Canada.
The Australian’s ruthless treatment of their opposition continued with a35-7 win over Brazil. Charlotte Caslick continued her outstanding from notching up five tries for the day.
In a tougher game on day two they defeated Russia 26-17 to progress to the final playing against Fiji.
In the final game of the Dubai Cup, they defeated Fiji 15-5 College and
Newly minted captain Demi Haynes a former student at Scots College and Fairholme College now has a 10 from 10 record in the series while Charlotte Caslick heads the individual player stats across the competition.
It is the first time since 2017-2018 that the women have won back-to-back World Sevens titles. In a game based on speed and skill back-to-back tournaments like this are demanding and the win is a credit to the resilience of this team which has bounced back from their disappointing Olympics campaign.
Despite their impressive wins in Dubai the litmus test for the women will come when archrivals, the Kiwi’s re-join the competition.
They did not participate in the opening two series due to C COVID restrictions.
A high performance review has been undertaken by Rugby Australia. After the dismal performances of the Seven’s at the Olympics RA there has been a restructuring of their high performance unit, including the sevens programs.
The women’s squad has been reduced to 15 players. The men’s squad cut to eight full-time players as part of cost-cutting measures by RA.
The jury is still out on whether these two series wins will be enough to save the position of the Women’s coach John Manenti and his counterpart Tim Walsh (coach of the Men’s Sevens side). Both were asked to reapply for their positions. It is believed RA will decide on their futures in the coming weeks.
2022 will be a big year for Rugby Sevens (Men’s and Women’s). The HBSC caravan roles on from January through to May.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games will be played at the end of July followed by the World Cup 7s tournament in South Africa in September.
Decisions made now by RA will have a far reaching effect. In the meantime, the Australian Women’s team is riding high.
