Rugby news: Aussie women training against men to regain Sevens edge

Australian women’s Sevens star Charlotte Caslick reveals how the team bounced back from Olympic failure to win their first tournament following the Tokyo heartache.

Australia's women's Sevens team won the Dubai World Series tournament in November 2021.

Training against their male counterparts has helped transform Australia’s women’s Sevens team into champions once again following their Tokyo Games failure.

Star Charlotte Caslick revealed intense opposed sessions against Australia’s men’s squad played a key role in their Dubai 7s World Series win last weekend.

Caslick is part of a revamped Aussie team that suffered the disappointment of finishing fifth in Tokyo, having won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics, and said the team was not fit enough leading into this year’s Games.

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“We worked really hard this off-season, it is such a hard sport when you’re not fit and the girls were all hitting PBs leading into Dubai,” Caslick said.

“That’s just allowed them to play the style of footy we wanted, we can move the ball really well. If you don’t have the fitness base to play like that it really limits you, and I think that’s what happened in Tokyo.

Charlotte Caslick has bounced back to form after Australia’s early exit at the Tokyo Olympics. Picture: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

“And we’ve been doing a lot of training against the boys, they obviously have a new squad as well and their coach Walshy [Tim Walsh] has been nice enough to let us train against them.

“We were doing almost two sessions a week against the boys, that prepared us really well. They’re obviously faster, fitter, they move the ball faster, everything about it is harder.

“So the fact we were preparing against them made it easier once we go back against the girls.

“They go harder than you expect, if people were watching they’d be saying ‘They should tone it down’. It’s good for us. We aren’t the biggest team on the circuit but if we can front up physically and win those battles out there helps us a lot.

“Playing against the boys and not being worried – the boys hold us in at rucks, do annoying boy things we’re not used to, and it’s been good for us.

“It’s only touch but it becomes one-two-three grab, wrestle at times.”

In Dubai last week, Australia — wearing the gold jersey of the Wallabies teams — went undefeated, scoring a remarkable 163 points and conceding just 39 to claim the title. They defeated Fiji 22-7 in the final with Caslick winning player of the tournament.

Australia’s women's Sevens team won the Dubai World Series tournament last weekend.

They will back up in Dubai this weekend for the second round.

Australia is in Pool A and will play Spain, Brazil and Canada on Friday, then Russia on Saturday before the playoffs commence that afternoon.

“We could have done better in Tokyo so we were disappointed in that, and from there we took away a few lessons, the majority of it was around peoples’ attitudes towards training, having more positive energy around the group, and trusting everyone to do their own job,” Caslick said.

“That was a key to last weekend, everyone just did their own job, and it allowed everyone to shine on their own rather than try to fix others’ mistakes.

“In Tokyo we had a lot of pressure on us, here we came in with a new team and everyone wasn’t expecting much, we performed well and everyone was happy and having fun, smiling.

Australia’s mens sevens team have been helping the women’s side to prepare for their tournament in Dubai. Picture: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

“It sucked, I was numb [after the Olympic defeat]. You can’t change it in a Sevens tournament, you have to keep playing. In tournaments like the Olympics, once you lose you wish you are done, but we had to show up on day two.

“I told the girls then, we can’t change that we lost, but we can change what happens next.”

A key tactical change for the team has been to offload in contact rather than take the ball to ground, and they’re using youngsters Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea and Faith Nathan effectively.

“Alysia offloads every time she gets the ball and hits contact, Faith Nathan is really good at offloading,” Caslick said.

“We used to get turned over a lot on the ground, so if we’re not going into those battles on the ground it helps us and our skill set.”