The past seven months have been \u201cunreal\u201d for Will Cartwright, with the young flier going from club rugby in Queensland to shining on the global HSBC SVNS series. A high-flying progression that he has no intention of stopping, especially now he is back on Australian soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can definitely win it, it\u2019s our first focus, winning the tournament,\u201d Cartwright said ahead of the HSBC SVNS in Perth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some unreal talent, some young boys, like Aden Ekanayake \u2013 what he can do, he should be in the Team of the Year by the end of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHis athleticism and his maturity at 20 is unbelievable. A lot of the younger boys stepping up will take us a long way because the older boys are doing their job.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cartwright may only be 22, and one of four men\u2019s players to already make their SVNS debut for Australia this season, but there is no doubt that Cartwright is one of those \u2018doing his job\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scorer of both tries in a brilliant 14-0 semi-final victory over France in Dubai, Cartwright also scored in the agonising 26-22 gold-medal match defeat to New Zealand in that season-opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Further strong performances followed, particularly in Singapore, as Australia grabbed victories over Argentina, Spain and Great Britain \u2014 great moments that seemed a long way off little more than a year ago, when Cartwright, and indeed fellow SVNS newbie Ethan McFarland, were eying up very different futures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were both sparkies back up in Brisbane, so this is different to, you know, crawling around roofs,\u201d Cartwright said. \u201cLate 2024 I finished my last exam [to qualify as an electrician] and then got a call from (Queensland) Reds to go into the academy. So quit then and basically gave the whole year to focus on rugby. I just thought, if I don\u2019t do it, I\u2019ll regret it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the dream. I’m not too keen to get back on the tools in Queensland\u2019s 35 degrees heat. It\u2019s pretty easy motivation for me; I don\u2019t think you could find me complaining much about anything I\u2019m doing right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An invitation to an Australia sevens combined training week, hosted by veteran Henry Hutchison, changed everything. Having found his form on the wing with first the Brothers Rugby Club, a Queensland grade outfit, and then the Reds, Cartwright grabbed the opportunity and ran with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was high pressure, obviously,\u201d Cartwright said. \u201cYou watch those boys on the World Series, and then you\u2019re playing against them, and obviously with them. I was lucky enough to be on (Maurice) Longbottom\u2019s team, which made it a bit easier, but at the same time I was up against Hutch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very intense. Obviously, the pressure of those 10 or 12 external boys all fighting for three or four contracts. Obviously, everyone wants the same thing \u2014 they want the best job in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cartwright got it and has \u2018loved\u2019 the first three HSBC SVNS events in Dubai, Cape Town and Singapore. Extra time in training, plus an early year excursion to Fiji to get more games under the belts of Australia\u2019s youngsters is all helping. But the endlessly high-end nature of the HSBC SVNS series means there have been plenty of bumps to deal with, alongside those heartening wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it showed how quickly fine margins can snowball into bad performances \u2014 there weren\u2019t many performances we were happy with,\u201d Cartwright said of the second leg in Cape Town, when Australia lost to Argentina, Spain, France and New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely didn\u2019t deliver on what we needed to. So, yeah, I guess it shouldn\u2019t have been, but it was just a wake-up call that there\u2019s eight teams and any of those teams on their day will put 30 points on you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recovery in Singapore has placed Australia fifth in the table, eight points behind France and South Africa. And crucially, the team has the glorious carrot of playing in front of home fans in the coming days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember going to the Gold Coast sevens when I was younger, watching Charlotte Caslick and a few other boys, like Henry Hutchison, and I suppose it\u2019s a \u2018pinch-me\u2019 moment that I\u2019ll be on the field playing in front of the stands,\u201d Cartwright said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we want to win it in front of a home crowd. That would be a dream come true.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another dream come true for Cartwright.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past seven months have been \u201cunreal\u201d for Will Cartwright, with the young flier going from club rugby…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":{"0":"post-273027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}