Olympic fail fires up women’s sevens side
IT’S no accident the Australian women’s sevens team conquered the world to win every major trophy in 2022, with superstar Charlotte Caslick revealing the horror campaign at the Tokyo Olympics drove them to “never suck so much again”.
The Aussies were favourites to win gold or silver at the Games but slumped to fifth in an underwhelming campaign that sparked change in how the team approached things from nutrition to training.
The women’s team put the pain of Tokyo behind them to win the World Cup Sevens, the World Rugby Sevens Series and gold at the Commonwealth Games to stake their claim as Australia’s most dominant sporting side of 2022.
It’s why the team is confident they can handle the pressure of defending their title, with Sydney locked in to host an event in January next year.
“I think it’s because we sucked so much at Tokyo,” Caslick said at the launch at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. “That was a really difficult experience for a lot of the girls.”
Playing at home is something a lot of players haven’t done before, with Sydney not hosting a sevens event since 2020 when it was played at CommBank Stadium.
Next year’s event will be at the refurbished Allianz Stadium, where the men’s side will also be looking to defend the sevens series title they claimed in a thrilling final round in Los Angeles.
It will be the fourth stop of a hectic season and will be played from January 27-29 right next to Rugby Australia’s headquarters where both sevens programs have honed their skills.
“We feel like the foundations have been set and we’ve been able to keep the majority of the squad,” men’s skipper Nick Malouf said ahead of this weekend’s opening round in Hong Kong.
“But we know that we’re capable of more, and after the success we had last season, everyone is going to be gunning for us.”