A true rugby fan in Canada follows both Sevens and Fifteens Rugby, and both men and women. They will know that Canada’s Women Sevens Team is on Form.
A Canadian Rugby fan also supports grassroots rugby teams in small towns across Canada because that is where the next star is going to emerge from. A Canadian rugby fan cheers loudly when their Under 20 team makes it to the finals in a tournament. Because a Canadian rugby fan understands that all these programmes are funneled out of the same administrative and coaching hub in Langford, British Columbia.
Right now, there isn’t a serious Canadian Rugby fan out there who isn’t applauding, holding up, and massively cheering our Canadian Sevens women. They currently sit second after a massive win at the Amsterdam Sevens tournament, their first ever at a world’s sevens stop. Not only that, they were the SECOND team to automatically qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. England followed suit shortly thereafter, but Canada was right in there with their impressive showing this season as the proof that they deserved the qualification and the accolades that accompanied it.
The weekend was indeed impressive with big wins over France and the USA before edging out Australia for the tournament win. But the entire season has been impressive for these talented women.
The women on the Sevens team largely come from the same group that came second last summer at the Women’s (15s) World Cup Championships in France, and the Women’s Player of the Year for 2014, Magali Harvey (we’ve nick-named her #MagicHarvey because she’s fast and her side-step is pure magic), earned a spot within the top ten on the Sevens Leaderboard in Amsterdam. Our women players have proven that they are among the strongest in the world. It’s impressive and it has the entire rugby world a-buzz. But how did they get there?
Hard work, says head coach John Tait. “To finish the series off with back-to-back solid performances is so gratifying for us as a programme. These ladies have worked so hard, especially this season, at becoming better players and to see them rewarded with Rio qualification, winning an event and finishing second overall just makes me so proud of all of them. The series playing level has risen with each event so to finish so strongly in the last two just reinforces for us that we have the right people on and off the field building towards next season’s goal of winning an Olympic gold medal. We won’t be complacent either, we know we have lots of areas we can get better at and we will be raising our standards again, but for a night or so we are going to just enjoy this achievement.”
The women on the team constantly hold each other up, celebrate each other, and they seem to genuinely love playing together and want to win for each other as well as for the pride of representing Canada. They are incredible ambassadors of our sport of Rugby but they are also fantastic ambassadors of sport for girls and women. Captain Jen Kish’s “You Can Do It” attitude is infectious, and her recognition of young girls who admire her makes her worthy of the respect of Canada’s leaders and rugby supporters. There can be no greater representation of how a star rugby player and Captain should conduct him or herself on the world stage.
Our other players cannot be discounted. There are many leaders on the women’s team, whether or not they are the pointscoring leaders, as Ghislaine Landry currently is, sitting proudly at the TOP of the leaderboard, finishing the season first overall in the world series, scoring 301 total points. Karen Paquin was a respectable fifth on the points leaderboard from Amsterdam as well. Mandy Marchak is a familiar face in Canadian Women’s Rugby and can always be counted on for her great leadership and to get across the line herself. The rest of the team has their role within it and it has to be said that they are all exemplary; the best definition of Team.
The women play cohesively and are fiercely focused on 2016 and on the Medal Podium in the Olympics where they will, for the first time, represent Canada. Jen Kish has said her goal is to win the gold medal, and it’s evident for the rest of them too when you watch them play and they never falter, they don’t slow down, their lines are strong, and they keep going toward the line. Canada’s women play two strong 7 minute halves, and they leave nothing on the field when the 14 minutes is done.
Whatever John Tait, Sandro Fiorino, and the rest of the women’s coaching staff are doing, they really ought to bottle it and sell it to rugby clubs coast to coast. The way the women are playing is making the world stop and take notice. We deserve to be in the top flight, and the world knows it and respects us for it. This will help to grow the sport in Canada, which we are desperately interested in doing. The men are taking notice too, which will hopefully add fire to their upcoming World Cup campaign in the Fall.
The women ought to be incredibly proud of themselves, sit back on their laurels for awhile and relish their accomplishments, but as Tait says, not allow themselves complacency. They’ve made their country stand up and take notice too, but there is still work to be done. The women are still proving that their game is just as fast and fierce as the male version, and that they are indeed as exciting to watch.
I’ve said it before: It’s an incredible time to be a fan of rugby in Canada. We’ve got some mighty talent here and some more up and coming. It is going to be a great next few years to follow the growth of the sport here.
#GoCanadaGo
#RedNationRising
#RugbyUnited
Main Photo:
