Emilee Cherry says Aussie Sevens can find improvement in Sydney zero-point effort
GOING a full Sevens World Series event without conceding a point, you’d think the Aussie women’s team would have a pretty short review session. Nope. There’s still work to be done.
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GOING a full Sevens World Series event without conceding a point, you’d think the Aussie women’s team would have a pretty short review session after that.
But the reason this team continues to be and remain among the world’s best is because they set their standards high and accept nothing less.
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Olympian Emilee Cherry said even though they dominated the opposition at the Sydney Sevens in January there was plenty they found to work on.
“There was a lot actually, once we reviewed,” she said.
“There’s lots of little things that I think we can still work on.
“Defensively, our tackle technique wasn’t great, we were a bit slow to get them to ground. Attack-wise we were a bit sloppy in our patterns, so there’s lots to work on and that’s what we’re focusing on going into Comm Games.
“We’ve set our targets now and reviewed the last few tournaments in Dubai and Sydney and can see what other teams are doing, what we’re doing and we need to do to get better and just focusing on that at the moment.”
When the team went through Sydney Sevens event without having a point scored against them, they became the first team in sevens to ever do so.
Though they took a moment to enjoy that, now it’s about looking ahead.
The Commonwealth Games is the next major tournament, followed by the final three World Series events, then a World Cup in July.
Training is at max intensity — players are set to cover 45km in sessions during a fortnight — and diet plans are assigned (and followed) to ensure the energy is there to cover the ground, then recover properly.
Everything plays its part in staying ahead of the pack.
“We analyse things so much and look at it in minute detail of what we could have done better and I don’t think we realised until a few days after what we achieved over that [Sydney] weekend, to not let in any tries will be a feat that will be hard to replicate again,” said Cherry, speaking at an event with team dietician, Peta Carige, on the importance of beef in the players’ diet.
“It was very special for us and to do it on home turf after a disappointing Sydney Sevens last year was really special for us but we’re also focused on Comm Games.
“Dubai and Sydney are past us. We know the Kiwis and Canada are going to come out so hard, especially the Kiwis after that final.
“We know they didn’t play the best. We know they’re going to really fight at the Comm Games.”