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How offseason ‘World Series’ has set Australia up for more SVNS glory
By Finn Morton
After taking out the first cup final of the new SVNS season in Dubai, the Australian women’s sevens side are as motivated as ever to replicate their success in Cape Town this weekend.
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With the memories of their disappointing 2022/23 season still fresh in the minds of the playing group, the Aussies are looking to build towards greatness after a six-month “offseason.”
Australia famously brought an end to New Zealand’s incredible 41-game winning run in last weekend’s thrilling decider, and they’re unbeaten going into day two in South Africa.
Playing in front of a vibrantly brilliant crowd in the Western Cape, the Aussies almost repeated their pool play in heroics by not conceding a point – but Fiji cancelled that out with a late effort.
The women in gold beat Spain 38-nil, Japan 54-nil, and were beating SVNS heavyweights Fiji 28-nil before Adi Vani Buleki brought through for a score in the 15th minute.
But with an incredible points differential of +113, Australia have emerged as the team to beat once again this weekend – that’s an insight into their hunger, commitment and desire.
“Obviously having the win always helps but I think that just motivates us more, we want to keep winning,” Australian Demi Hayes told RugbyPass.
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“We don’t want to come to a second tournament and fall short again. We did that last year and we were pretty disappointed with that.
“We want to be getting better every tournament, not falling short… people are going to be coming after us but every team is super competitive at the moment so we still want to be as competitive as we can when we verse them.”
Time and time again, the Aussie women were forced to watch their Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand run away with cup final glory last season.
Australia took out the Dubai SVNS final a year ago, but the New Zealanders went on to win every other tournament throughout that campaign. Their dominance was unmatched.
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But looking to learn from their shortcomings, the Aussies took part in a mini SVNS season during a gruelling offseason – travelling abroad to meet some of the best teams in the world.
“We played nearly a whole World Series in that offseason so we had seven tournaments to get our combinations working really well together,” Hayes added.
“The 13 that are here, plus a few girls that are at home, are a really close-knit group.
“We’ve really worked on those combinations and made sure that when we came out in Dubai and here for the first few legs of the World Series that we were really starting to bang.”
Defence wins championships. It’s an adage – potentially a cliché – that practically every sports fan anywhere in the world has heard over and over.
While some might laugh it off as nothing more than a saying, the Aussies pride themselves on their “brick wall” in defence and that proved the difference in key games last weekend.
“Sometimes our defensive efforts make sure we fall short of wins so we always pride ourselves on having a brick wall, no one’s getting through us. We’re a sisterhood and no one’s breaking that sisterhood.
“There’s seven girls on the field but then there’s five on the bench and there’s girls behind us so there’s always a brick wall after brick wall after brick wall.
“Unfortunately we let a try in this afternoon but we really pride ourselves on not letting anyone score and its massive going into tomorrow.”
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The writer here ignores the fact that, following on from not taking the penalty kick, the All Blacks did manage to score a try a few minutes later. Not directly from the penalty awarded, but it is speculation to say that had they opted to take the koi they would have won. Even if they kicked it, which was no guarantee, they would still be trailing and would have had to start again at half-way.
Go to commentsI would be surprised if Sales Opoku Fordjour and Northampton’s Tommy Freeman are not in the team, Anthony Watson is also one that could go on the wing. One thing I must say is that the front 3 will get destroyed against a team like South Africa.
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