Healthy Bass back on track for Bond
THREE months spent staving off illness was hardly the ideal preparation for one of the biggest series of Emily Bass’ life.
Plenty of hype has surrounded the inaugural Women’s University Sevens Series and the four-part tournament has lived up to all expectation, cementing the sport’s place on the map Down Under.
However, health issues forced Bass to be a late starter, missing the opening two legs of the competition in Launceston and Sydney where her Bond University team took back-to-back silver medals.
“I actually picked up glandular fever … so I had a bit of chronic fatigue and stuff like that as well,” Bass told the Bulletin.
“That ruled me out for about three months.”
After “lots of rest” and a gradual increase in training workload, Bass is now back to 100 per cent.
“I wasn’t training as hard as what I was. I was just doing light 30-minute intervals every third day or so,” said the Bond sports management student.
“Eventually I got back to where I should have been and got back for the UQ (University of Queensland) round which was good.
“It was hard competing just fitness-wise and strength-wise but it was good to get back into it and get that first game out.”
Bond added yet another medal to their tally at the Brisbane round – a bronze – across September 16-17 but were unable to stop UQ from sweeping to a third straight victory.
Trailing UQ by eight points on the eight-team ladder, Bond will need a minor miracle on home turf in the final round tomorrow and Saturday to be crowned the overall champions.
The powerful UQ squad must come sixth or worse to leave the door ajar.
Thriving under the guidance of master coach Ben Gollings, Bass hopes a home crowd advantage can help her side turn the tide against UQ.
“It definitely does grind our gears when we don’t win against them … we are so determined to beat them,” Bass said.
Derby rivals Bond and Griffith University will go head-to-head at 2.40pm tomorrow. Each side will play a further two group matches that afternoon, with Saturday’s action dedicated to play-offs.
It will be a “Super Saturday” for Bond, with the 1pm gold medal match followed by an under-16 representative fixture, then a National Rugby Championship game between Queensland Country and Melbourne and, lastly, a Junior Gold Cup final.
IT WAS HARD COMPETING JUST FITNESSWISE AND STRENGTH-WISE BUT IT WAS GOOD TO GET BACK INTO IT ... EMILY BASS