Watch the 2025-26 HSBC SVNS Series live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Australian women sit second on the standings, and a huge crowd is set to descend on HBF Park to cheer on the home side as they attempt to defend their Perth crown.<\/p>\n
Australia beat arch-rivals New Zealand 28-26 in last year’s nailbiting Perth Sevens decider, but Levi was restricted to the role of a spectator after fracturing her right thumb in the quarter-final victory over Japan.<\/p>\n
Levi had to undergo surgery following the tournament, and she hopes her time in Perth will be much smoother this time around.<\/p>\n
“(Last year was) bittersweet because I was injured,” Levi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But for the girls to get the job done without Faith (Nathan) and I – to get the win against New Zealand, it’s something that you always cherish.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Every win over New Zealand and the neighbours over the ditch is something special.”<\/p>\n
Levi wasn’t immediately aware of just how serious her thumb injury was, bravely trying to play through the pain in a bid to guide Australia to success.<\/p>\n
“It was pretty sore, but I was like, ‘I’ll play through and see how it goes’,” Levi said.<\/p>\n
“And then it wasn’t until the second half when I wasn’t even holding the ball and it was throbbing, then I kind of knew, ‘OK, it’s pretty bad’.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I shattered my complete metacarpal, and I’ve got four screws and a metal plate in there now – titanium. But it’s all good to go.”<\/p>\n
Last year’s injury is now a distant memory for Levi.<\/p>\n
The same can’t be said for the team’s implosion in Singapore on Sunday, when the Kiwis romped to a 36-7 win over Australia in a one-sided final.<\/p>\n
Australia’s players have been stewing over that flop ever since, and Levi said the team is determined to come out firing in Perth.<\/p>\n
“Obviously we’ve been thinking about it a lot.” Levi said.<\/p>\n
“Pretty disappointing effort by our behalf. And I think we are all pretty upset.<\/p>\n
“Yes, you lose some and you win some. But to lose by that – we kind of didn’t really play rugby.”<\/p>\n
The Australian men sit fifth in the standings after producing finishes of second, seventh and fifth so far this season.<\/p>\n
Brumbies centre Jarrah McLeod will make his Sevens debut in Perth after answering an SOS to replace Dietrich Roache (hamstring).<\/p>\n
“We welcome Jarrah into the squad and appreciate Stephen Larkham and the Brumbies for his release at a critical time in their pre-season,” Australian men’s Sevens coach Liam Barry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Sevens star Maddison Levi has a titanium plate in her hand as a memento from her last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,40283,760,178643,85],"class_list":["post-459858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-womens-sevens","tag-rugby","tag-sevens-world-series","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459858","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=459858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}