Alysha Corrigan makes a lot of things look easy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scoring tries, offloading, and leaving defenders clutching \u2014 despairingly \u2014 at her black Saracens jersey, she\u2019s ranked top five for each of those metrics in Premiership Women\u2019s Rugby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Producing big plays on the biggest of stages \u2014 like her score in the 2022 PWR final, that dot-down before a capacity Stade de France with Olympic gold on the line, or her brace against Australia in the last eight of the 2025 World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her ability to skip between 7s and 15s better than almost anyone, having hot-stepped between the disciplines for years now, and so often rising with the ball and that trademark, twinkling smile.<\/p>\n
She makes it all look effortless, so it\u2019s heartening to hear that the 29-year-old from Charlottetown, Canada, is human, after all, and that the last few weeks, readying herself for Singapore and Perth, have seriously tested even her formidable engine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest part of switching back is, without doubt, the fitness: the lactic in your legs reaches crazy levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYour brain knows that you\u2019re supposed to move \u2013 to generate power, or do literally anything at all \u2014 but you just can\u2019t. Throw 35C heat into that equation, and you\u2019re asking yourself why you do this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere then comes a point when even your brain isn\u2019t working, you hardly know what you\u2019re doing, and it\u2019s fight or flight. It\u2019s hard to do it justice. You think 14 minutes isn\u2019t that long, but 14 minutes in sevens is an eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s, unquestionably, put the work in. A quick glance of the Olympian\u2019s Instagram reveals hours of fastidious plyometrics, stability work, and tin-shifting \u2014 plus gruelling-looking speed and endurance sessions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Making her personal challenge more difficult is that she\u2019s been in the trenches solo \u2014 training back home, in empty gyms, before linking back up with the rest of the Maples and heading East.<\/p>\n
Why on earth is she doing it? Corrigan could, like the rest of the PWR, have had a chunk of January off.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I just love sevens!\u201d she laughs, aware of how contradictory this all sounds. \u201cYour first session back, there\u2019s always this thrilling moment where you realise just how much space there is to play with, and how much fun you can have with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlus, this stint works perfectly with my Saracens\u2019 schedule. I was going to use January as a bit of an off-season anyway \u2014 because our last one of those was\u2026 I don\u2019t even know! It\u2019s been so long since we had a sustained training block. It\u2019s still a good break, mentally, emotionally, and from 15s-style contact.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the fact that code-hopping makes players, and teams, better. Jorja Miller was uncontainable for swathes of 2025, Meg Jones and Alev Kelter are hybrid powerhouses, and it\u2019s no coincidence that the Canada outfit who so sensationally reached September\u2019s Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup final was littered with sevens caps. Symbiosis between the two programmes is a no-brainer, and something Corrigan has advocated for for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt develops your game in so many different ways. Whichever format you start in, you\u2019ll improve by playing the other \u2014 15s hones your game management, and sevens your pure athleticism and confidence ball-in-hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, I\u2019m not your natural out-and-out winger \u2014 I love a breakdown and the contact-heavy parts \u2014 but the circuit taught me to back myself and beat people, and really enhanced my raw speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
She prides herself on her nuggety attitude, her turnover ability, the way she governs a defensive line, and her clutch plays: attributes which have made her central to the eyes-up, fizzing rugby Canada women have become known for – in both sevens and 15s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a joy to play in: pick the best space, attack it with speed, and riff off those around you. The girls have been so fun to watch already this season: I can\u2019t wait to get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back-to-back sixth-placed finishes don\u2019t quite do Jocelyn Barrieau\u2019s side justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve pushed some of the HSBC SVNS Series\u2019 titans hard, and \u2014 but for two last-gasp defeats to Japan \u2014 their campaign\u2019s complexion would look very different.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve also been without the likes of Liv Apps, Fancy Bermudez, Taylor Perry, and, of course, Corrigan: talismanic, decorated fulcrums, whose focus since Paris has been on 15s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been one of the biggest takeaways from Dubai and Cape Town: we lacked, at a few key moments, the sort of game management you can only really gain from big match experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a slightly new-look squad, transitioning elements of our game. But what\u2019s awesome is that Jocelyn empowers us to try things as we grow and learn together, which opens the door to nerve-free rugby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s amazing \u2014 so passionate about the sport, our team, and what it means to be Canadian and represent that badge. She\u2019s the perfect person to get that extra one or two per cent out of us, to keep challenging us, whilst bringing through the younger athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
With those veterans turning out in Singapore, the near-misses might just become scalps, and \u2014 given that Barrieau\u2019s tyros have already taken losing bonus points from both of their meetings with Australia \u2014 there\u2019s a certain glittering jersey squarely in their cross-hairs\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia are always fun to play against. They\u2019re a real challenge and getting the win against them is a target, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last time those in red triumphed over those in gold? The World Cup quarter-final in Bristol. The time before that? Pacific Four in Brisbane that spring. And before then? That phenomenal semi-final in Paris.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Corrigan started all three.<\/p>\n
Can the World and Olympic silver medalist quite believe her last 18 months?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo! Sometimes I\u2019ll text Chloe Daniels, like: \u2018can you believe we\u2019re silver medalists?\u2019, and she can\u2019t either. I\u2019m wondering when it\u2019ll sink in: it\u2019s just crazy to think that I\u2019ve done that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me all the time if I\u2019ve wrapped my head around the fact that this is my life, and \u2014 honestly \u2014 the answer is \u2018no\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd at that World Cup final was half the size of the town I\u2019m from. You talk about \u2018pinch me moments\u2019, and that\u2019s the definition of that. The older I get, the better I am at taking time to reflect, though, to acknowledge that I\u2019m having the time of my life and enjoying every minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople also ask me the difference between those two medals. I think that lies in the expectation around us, headed into those tournaments. In sevens, we were ranked fifth \u2014 no one externally gave us a chance \u2014 and so proving our point and worth was so, so special, as much as silver is always bittersweet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThen, in England, we were there to win, so it\u2019s taking time to appreciate the occasion of it all, and the impact we had on women\u2019s rugby among the sting of losing out. Eventually, it\u2019ll sink in: perhaps once I retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s just celebrated her 29th birthday, out in Singapore, surrounded by some of her favourite people on the planet, and the milestone was the perfect time for a little reflection.<\/p>\n
\u201cJob\u2019s not done: for sure. That said, this is the first year I\u2019ve not had a major tournament in a long time, so I\u2019m determined to enjoy it. Win a Premiership, of course, that\u2019s pinned dead centre on the board, but then relish a summer without rugby, because it\u2019ll be the Los Angeles Games before we know it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the very short-term: I\u2019m going to savour some sun. After Perth, back in North London, there\u2019s a chance I won\u2019t see it for some time!\u201d<\/p>\n
This weekend, at the National Stadium \u2014 Corrigan\u2019s legs might burn, her lungs might scream, and her decision-making might melt in the heat \u2014 but you get the sense, as she heads off to training, that she wouldn\u2019t change a thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alysha Corrigan makes a lot of things look easy.\u00a0 Scoring tries, offloading, and leaving defenders clutching \u2014 despairingly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-444514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444514","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=444514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}