Australia’s women’s sevens team determined to become the most recognisable female sport
NOT cricket. Not swimming. Not even netball. Australia’s women’s sevens team want to be the most recognisable female sport in Australia.
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NOT cricket. Not swimming. Not even netball.
Australia’s women’s sevens team want to be the most recognisable female sport in Australia.
And after an incredible year of success they’re well on their way to achieving what would once have been a pipedream.
A gold medal was the dangling carrot for the team for four years.
After completing that fairytale in Rio they now have other sports in their sights as they continue to strive for the ultimate goals on-field.
“We want to become the most recognisable female sport in Australia and keep pushing ourselves to the forefront of women’s sport and keep driving that,” star player Alicia Quirk said.
“That can be done through successes, winning tournaments, back to back World Series and doing like we did in 2015 in putting ourselves in the best position to do well at the Commonwealth Games 2018.”
Player buy-in to promote the growing women’s sevens rugby has always been an important element of the Australian team.
Coach Tim Walsh has hammered home the influence they can have on the next generation.
He knew the players he had would always take that on board.
“From the outset we had a vision around what we want it to be and how we want it to be perceived internally from us and from the outside,” Walsh said.
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“One of the attractions to doing the coaching job was to really create a brand and almost a new product for Sevens with such remarkable players and human beings, it has been exceptional.
“Through my language and the experience they’ve had, they’ve really taken on the impact they can have on the sport and taken that with real responsibility and vision.
“They are very into it and are fantastic role models and they understand where they can have impact in making sure the younger generation are looking up to these players and wanting to play rugby sevens.”
And what is the next step in becoming the top women’s sport and pushing towards another gold?
“We want to keep improving, develop heaps of our newer, younger players and build a good culture with all of them because it’s kind of start afresh,” Quirk said.
“It’s a big four years to build up to [Tokyo 2020] so we’re looking at putting (Rio) behind us and leaving that as history and a legacy and moving on to creating a new foundation with a lot of younger players.
“We have four or five girls who are 17, 18 so we’re starting again from that aspect with a few older heads as well.”
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