CANADA SEVENS TAKE ON THE WORLD
Canada looks to halt home-field jinx
One year ago, Caroline Crossley played for Oak Bay in a high school rugby game during a break in the action of the 2016 Canada Sevens at Westhills Stadium in Langford.
But there are no more sideshows to the main event for Crossley, who was named to the Canadian roster for the 2017 Canada Sevens today and Sunday at Westhills.
“That’s a bit of a jump,” said Crossley, in what may be the understatement of the weekend.
Crossley, Julia Greenshields from Sarnia, Ont., and Breanne Nicholas from Blenheim, Ont., are the three newcomers to the roster and join the nine veterans from the 2016 Rio Olympics bronzemedallist Canadian squad.
Today is Canada’s first game on home soil since Rio.
“We are going to feed off the energy of the crowd but we also need to keep focused on the field,” said Crossley, making just her third career HSBC World Series appearance for Canada, following up from Dubai last year and Las Vegas this season.
The rising Castaway Wanderers product watched and learned from Canada’s rise to the Olympic podium in Rio last summer and seems poised to play a prominent role in this quadrennial leading to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, 2019 Lima Pan Am Games and 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
“The work ethic professional attitude of our veteran players is remarkable,” noted Crossley, of what she has learned by studying the Canadian veterans.
“They are so clinical in pressure situations.”
The six-foot Crossley gives Canada more of a physical dimension. Being a hometown player on the host team makes it a dream scenario for her.
This is the fifth of six stops on the 2017 HSBC World Series and features all three podium finishers from the Rio Olympics last summer — champion Australia, silver-medallist New Zealand and bronze-medallist Canada.
The Kiwis lead the 2017 World Series championship standings with 76 points after the first four tournaments in Dubai, Sydney, Las Vegas and Kitakyushu, Japan. The final tournament will be June 24-25 in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
The remaining two World Series season podium spots are a toss-up between Australia, currently in second place with 66 points, and Canada, third with 64. Fourthplace Fiji has 50 points and will need a furious late-season run to make the podium, as will Russia, which rounds out the top five with 46 points.
After a bad start in Dubai, Canada has rebounded for a good season with first place in Sydney, second place in Japan and third place in Las Vegas.
But there remains the elephant on the Westhills turf — the host team’s underachieving fifth- and sixth-place finishes in the Canada Sevens the past two years.
“This game [sevens] is too short to make tactical errors,” said veteran Canadian player Bianca Farella, of Canada’s shortcomings in the quarter-final stage the last two years at Westhills.
“Good teams capitalize on mistakes.”
That is a hard lesson Canada put to good use last year. A lategame quarter-final collapse against France at Westhills stunned the host Canadians in the 2016 Canada Sevens. Canada learned from that and didn’t let it happen again when the hand of fate directed the Canadians to another meeting against the French in the Olympic quarterfinals at Rio.
“We kept our composure in Rio and channelled our energy better,” said Canadian player Hannah Darling, of the lessons learned from last year’s debacle at Westhills.
Yet, in an ominous sign, no host team has ever won a women’s World Series tournament. Canada hopes to break that jinx. It will take the 12 national teams a total of 33 games this weekend in Langford to decide the 2017 Canada Sevens champion, beginning today at 10:30 a.m. with England versus the U.S. and games following in rapid succession. Canada’s pool games today are against Brazil at 12:20 p.m., France at 3:04 p.m. and Russia at 5:48 p.m.
Fewer than 200 of the 6,430 tickets over the two days remain and organizers are hoping for a sellout with the walk-ups.
“It means a great deal for us to share all our hard work with our Canadian fans,” said Farella.
Darling reflected on the impact of the Olympic medal: “People watched us on TV in Rio and we helped Canadians fall in love with rugby sevens. It’s going to be awesome this weekend with a lot of people here.”