Green is realising a childhood ambition by making her Olympic debut in Rio, although it was track and field in which she thought she would be competing.
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Ryan says the team has managed to overcome a number of challenges and their journey continues in Rio next week. “It’s something to get excited about, but you just have to remember what your goal is at the end of the day and what you want to achieve”.
Doyle and her parents were not at all familiar with rugby.
“I think I dominated in the contact area of the game in rugby, and that’s just basically because of my four years of my football behind me”, Kish said.
From 1995 to 2007, the Saint Michaels University School athletics teacher was an International Rugby Board test referee who blew the whistle on 13 IRB World 7s series events and 11 test matches for the 15s. In 2015, the women’s rugby team at Eastern was suspended because of a lack of players. The final is set for Monday, and the men’s tournament runs for the following three days.
“And that’s what it needs to be – every day, every single session”, said the former England captain, who was the inaugural world sevens player of the year in 2004. Doyle was also involved in several sports throughout her life and that made an impression on the coach.
“We’re better than that”, said Canada’s Jen Kish. “You see the locals and even some of the players and many live with very little”.
She started off playing Rugby Union, which consists of 15 players on each team.
At the heart of that history is the pace, power and skill of the Fijians, 16 times winners of the iconic Hong Kong Sevens and World Series champions for the last two years.
Since moving from England in 2013, Ryan has harnessed the passion Fijians have for their kind of football, reinforcing the bonds between the game and the people in a Pacific island nation which has become too familiar with seeing its best rugby talent move overseas seeking opportunities.
“It is so fast paced and the ball moves all over the place”, Doyle said. It’s a risky, entertaining, exciting, slightly laid back – sometimes – way of playing the game.
“I think being here now in South America is a great statement”.
Narromine product Pat McCutcheon trains in Rio ahead of the Australian Rugby Sevens side’s first clash of the Olympics on Wednesday morning.
“Honestly it’s kind of a hard concept to grasp”, Doyle said.
Waisale Serevi, one of the greatest sevens exponents of all time, is a proud Fijian who knows what the OIympic team is facing. “Every weekend was an all-encompassing model where you coached youth, refereed older youth and then played for your team”, Kuklinski said.
This version of the sport is already taking off in Portugal and Kenya and it has been the means of developing rugby in the United States, Canada and Romania.
The Englishman – who has become a cult figure in his adopted home, rejuvenating the team since arriving in 2013 – wants the Pacific Islanders to express themselves and keep things simple despite the mounting pressure to succeed.
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“Sevens really isn’t rocket science – it’s an fantastic team sport where your skills and your team ethos are put under complete and utter pressure through fatigue and exhaustion”.
