Adversity binds Aussie sevens team
HE narrowly avoided being yet another hard-luck story but Maurice Longbottom says the adversity buffeting the Australian men’s sevens team will only make them stronger at the Commonwealth Games.
Longbottom, who overcame an ankle injury just in time to play on the Gold Coast, and the Aussie men’s team flew into the Gold Coast yesterday for their first game on Saturday after basing their camp in Sydney.
They arrived minus four key players, with two captains Lewis Holland (hamstring) and James Stannard (fractured skull) ruled out in the last few weeks, and Simon Kennewell (knee) also sidelined.
Experienced former captain Ed Jenkins was forced to retire recently with a shoulder injury.
The awful circumstances of Stannard’s injury – an alleged coward’s punch – rocked the team but they were buoyed by the veteran turning up to training on Monday to wish them well. Coach Andy Friend has had his hands full ahead of his last tournament in charge, following last month’s awkwardly timed decision by Rugby Australia to replace him with women’s coach Tim Walsh.
The bad luck has stacked up on Australia ahead of a Games where the world’s top-three nations Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa, are competing.