Kish enjoying the best of both worlds
Canadian veteran ‘having my cake and eating it, too’ while training at home in Edmonton
The challenge of just making the team isn’t something that rugby sevens superstar Jen Kish is used to.
Week in, week out, she has to prove her worth.
That didn’t used to be the case. She was the captain after all.
But after leading Canada’s women’s team to Olympic bronze last summer in Rio, she took a step back this season.
“I’m back to that 16-year-old not sure I’m going to make the team,” she said this week during a break in preparation for this weekend’s Canada Women’s Sevens in Langford (Saturday, Sunday, kickoff each day at 10:30 a.m. PT, TSN). “It’s nice to have that feeling again.” After five years training and living near Victoria, the 28-year-old has moved her life back to her hometown of Edmonton. That’s where her family, friends and, most importantly, partner Nadene are.
“I’m having my cake and eating it, too,” Kish admits about the arrangement, which coach John Tait fully supports. “I’m able to be home with my partner and friends and family who I’ve missed for five years.”
And if she doesn’t get selected, she’s fine with that, too. That’s the challenge she’s accepted.
“I’m blessed to to have a coach who believes in me, that I can maintain my fitness,” she says.
Training on her own in Edmonton is a challenge at times. “I thought being centralized (in Langford) was tough,” she says. “But (in Edmonton), you don’t have anyone besides yourself to keep you disciplined.
“I have to train 100 times harder now.”
But she knows how hard the 22 athletes in Langford are working under Tait’s direction.
“My teammates have these expectations. I hope I always meet them.”
Tait says that allowing Kish and veteran teammate Ashley Steacy to return to their Alberta hometowns (Steacy’s from Lethbridge) and train on their own “wasn’t too difficult.”
Both players know what it takes to play on the series circuit. Being centralized isn’t a requirement, he says, but it’s getting tougher and tougher for players who aren’t in Langford full time.
“If I’m doing my job, eventually it will be tougher for players training on their own,” Tait says.
But having Kish still available, hitting her fitness marks, makes keeping her involved a no-brainer.
“Jen’s unique skill set, being so good in the air and on the ground,” is why Tait’s able to keep selecting her. “She still brings in points of differences.”
Plus there’s her veteran presence, a calming influence for the younger members of the squad.
“They get the confidence of playing beside her,” says Tait. “They can measure themselves against her.
“They know they’ve got an experienced player who’s been through a lot (and) who has self-confidence in her own abilities.”
Kish says that no longer being captain has helped her game.
“It’s easier to play your part when you’re not in a leadership role,” she says.
Tait says the switch in leadership has been smooth as well. Kish led the team to Rio with the likes of Steacy and Kelly Russell the longtime veterans. (Russell and another former sevens star, Karen Paquin, have since joined the 15-a-side squad as it prepares for this summer’s Rugby World Cup in Ireland.)
“The (new) group, I feel, this season has really grown,” Tait says of his new core leadership trio of captain Ghislaine Landry, Kayla Moleschi and Bianca Farella.
For Kish, the new target is the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia, then the 2018 Rugby Sevens World Cup in San Francisco.
“Then I’ll reassess.”