Sevens women to keep eyes on the top prize
AUSTRALIA’S all-conquering women’s sevens team is blocking out the white noise surrounding the one-punch attack that ended the Commonwealth Games dream of men’s captain James Stannard.
Stannard, in his final season before retirement, was released from hospital on SunEMILEE day after suffering a fractured skull in an unprovoked attack in Sydney on Thursday morning. With the Australian male and female teams working closely, women’s coach Tim Walsh said his players had been “rattled” by the drama but denied it would derail their bid for gold.
“We all love James and we care for him and the team, so there is that impact but from a team point of view we go about our job,” Walsh told media at Gold Coast Airport yesterday.
“We were rattled and shocked around that (news) but now it’s time to focus on us and play and if we can draw motivation to do it for Chucky as well, then we can certainly take that into our preparation.
“(Win gold) is what we’re here to do. We have some incredibly good players, really good experience and a really close-knit group that understand the game well, so performance is our number one.
“We know if we perform to our best we’re going to be up the top there competing for that gold medal.”
Preparing for his final tournament as coach, Walsh predicted his looming exit would have a positive effect.
“When it was announced that I was going to step down, there was a bit of emotion and then we went out and had one of the best training sessions we’ve ever had. Then we had Sydney (World Series leg) and it was the best they’d played in a long time.
“I don’t think anything is going to change until afterwards. I’ll be reaching for the tissues but probably not the players.”