\u201cWhen I was young, my dad used to make me go outside and he\u2019d draw a person out of chalk on the wall,\u201d Halse recalls, bouncing with her trademark energy in a week in which the Wallaroos take on England\u2019s<\/a> dominant Red Roses<\/a>. \u201cI used to throw hundreds of balls on each side at it. I was trying to get better at my skills every day.\u201d <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Caitlyn Halse has been a star of the first two weeks of the World Cup (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n It was hard work that paid off. Virtually throughout her young life, Halse has been marked out as something of a sporting prodigy. At age six, she was donning Picton Magpies rugby league shirt; at age eight, a Camden Rams union uniform, her pigtails hidden beneath a scrum cap to avoid criticism from young boys. By the age of 16 years and 187 days, she was breaking James O\u2019Connor\u2019s record as the youngest ever player to feature in a Super Rugby match when she made her debut in the Waratahs<\/a>\u2019 season opener. Within a year and a half, she became the youngest ever Australian international. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Caitlyn Halse made her Super Rugby debut at the age of 16 (Getty)<\/p>\n No wonder, then, that Halse is nicknamed \u201cThe Kid\u201d in Wallaroos camp. Such is the youthful talent being brought through by head coach Jo Yapp that the teenage full-back is now only the most junior member of the squad in England, but Halse is already a key figure within the squad and, after injury to sevens star Charlotte Caslick before the World Cup, a certain starter at full-back. <\/a>Much of Australia\u2019s game is shaped around what the youngster can do both with ball in hand and with a boot that belies her age and relative inexperience.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I go into a training session where I get to refine them, I stick with it and don\u2019t just mess around,\u201d she says, before chuckling: \u201cTeammates are definitely better than a chalk drawing on the wall. They get to talk to me and give me feedback. <\/p>\n \u201cI think one of my strengths would definitely be my kicking. I think I\u2019ve got a pretty good long kicking game. Also my vision \u2013 I am good at counting numbers, reading defence and attack. But I think I\u2019ve got a lot to work on, speed being one of them. My kicking can still get better. It\u2019s good, but there are always things I can improve on, whether it\u2019s my follow through, or the technique in which I kick the ball.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely think the full-back position is ever evolving. There are a lot more full-backs that have the run\/kick\/pass game, whereas a couple of years ago they might have only had the run\/ pass, and not the kicking. It\u2019s only going to get better and better with the more rugby and high intensity games we get to play.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Caitlyn Halse scored twice against Samoa and the USA (Getty)<\/p>\n Halse has been heavily backed by Yapp both in public and private. The former England scrum half, who will leave her role as Australia head coach to return home after this tournament, is a keen nurturer of talent who played a vital role in the development of plenty of Red Roses during her time with the national under-20s side. The belief she is instilling in Halse is clear from the full-back\u2019s performances on the pitch, two tries arriving against Samoa and the USA in each of her first two World Cup outings. <\/p>\n \u201cAlmost before every game, she tells me that no matter what I do, they are going to back my performance,\u201d Halse explains of Yapp\u2019s influence. \u201cTheir main message is around mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are going to happen, I think it is just the reaction to what happens and trying to get back into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Caitlyn Halse counts her kicking game as one of her strengths (Getty)<\/p>\n But her confidence also comes from a willingness to back herself. Growing up, Halse idolised All Blacks great Christian Cullen<\/a> \u2013 \u201cthe way he manipulated the line, his speed, I loved him\u201d \u2013 even though the full-back retired just a year after she was born, as well as Dan Carter<\/a> \u2013 \u201cthe epitome of a world-class 10\u201d, according to Halse. She continues to bring things from others into camp. Australia co-captain Emily Chancellor tells a story of Halse spotting a banana-style kick in a Super Rugby game and immediately working hard to add it to her own skillset \u2013 results, according to the young full-back, have been mixed but are a sign of an ambitious talent.<\/p>\n The challenge of facing the all-conquering Red Roses does not necessarily daunt her. \u201cI\u2019ve grown up wanting to play on the international stage. It\u2019s meant to be an almost sold-out crowd of 30,000 people [in Brighton on Saturday], and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever played in front of so many people before. I\u2019ll try to feed off the crowd\u2019s energy and get myself pumped up.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Caitlyn Halse could be key as Australia plot a World Cup upset against England (Getty)<\/p>\n \u201cI try not to think about the pressure of the game too much. A couple of the girls in the group keep me humble. I try not to focus too much on the pressure and just go out and do what I do best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-115245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Caitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Caitlyn-Halse-tptk14w2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Caitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Caitlyn-Halse.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Caitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Caitlyn-Halse-kvnsogxw.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Caitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1756888991_337_Caitlyn-Halse.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Caitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Caitlyn-Halse-fgueg7rt.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n