The world of sport spins fast, as match follows tournament follows season in a dizzying cycle of sporting entertainment. So when should Australia care? When should the collective head look up from the school lunches and phone bills of the everyday and tune in?<\/p>\n
The \u201cunderdog\u201d Wallaroos<\/a> begin their Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup campaign in England this weekend, and this one means something. Just ask fans of the host nation\u2019s Red Roses, who have already sold out the World Cup final in anticipation of the nation\u2019s first title since 2010. The 82,000 capacity crowd at Twickenham will be the largest in women\u2019s rugby history<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ask Wallaroos captain Siokapesi Palu, who after witnessing the huge interest in England this week expressed hope that soon Australia would follow. \u201cIt\u2019s good to see with our own eyes and with the lens of where women\u2019s sport probably isn\u2019t as visible back home than it is here,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great benchmark in the standards that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n Ask Australian veterans Arabella McKenzie and Emily \u201cHorse\u201d Robinson, who both missed out on a place in the Wallaroos squad in pre-tournament selection shocks. Rather than retreat in disappointment, they have thrust themselves into the spotlight by starting a podcast they joke is partly for counselling.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible event coming up, and we want to really spotlight the Wallaroos and the other rugby teams and the best players from around the world,\u201d McKenzie said on the Back Row Seats, part of the Female Athlete Project.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first World Cup in nine years that I haven\u2019t been to, so it\u2019s a lot to take in,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cBut it\u2019s positive that we can shine a light on our mates and the game that we both still love.\u201d<\/p>\n Ask Jaime Fernandez, father of Wallaroos lock Ashley and Rugby Australia\u2019s manager of women\u2019s high performance, who followed up a pre-tournament interview with a heart-felt text message about how this group was \u201cspecial\u201d, and how their sacrifices and progress warranted more attention.<\/p>\n Fernandez won a silver medal for Australia in the men\u2019s eight at Sydney 2000, and came to Rugby Australia from a decade in elite rowing in 2023. It was part of an expansion of investment undertaken to improve the performance of the Wallaroos, who are currently ranked No 6 in the world but whose reputation trails well behind international benchmarks of England, New Zealand and Canada.<\/p>\n Wallaroos captain Siokapesi Palu has been impressed with the levels of interest before the tournament has even begun. Photograph: Molly Darlington\/World Rugby\/Getty Images<\/p>\n A year before Fernandez arrived, Rugby Australia had won the right to host the 2029 World Cup, as part of the sport\u2019s so-called golden decade. \u201cThere was this real energy and drive to move and shift, in the first instance, the XVs game forward from where it was,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just this perfect alignment of things occurring for us to give it a kickstart.\u201d<\/p>\n Look at the list of the most experienced Wallaroos, and you get some indication of the progress and expanded schedule of the past few years. Headed by Ash Marsters<\/a> with 41 caps, nine of the 10 most capped are currently still playing.<\/p>\n In the years before Fernandez came in, the women\u2019s XVs programme relied on club and state programmes to develop talent, with few national staff. Now, a typical annual programme will involve 10 or more Tests, as well as tours and training camps. Around 40 players are now contracted by Rugby Australia in XVs, alongside 20 or so in sevens, with the best players earning close to $100,000 per year<\/a>.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Emerging fullback Caitlyn Halse said more time with coaches has allowed her to improve her kicking and decision-making. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve gotten a lot better at kicking and more knowledge of kicking, like when to pull the trigger on a 50-22, or when to kick long or do a high bomb or something like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Halse is one of several young talents pursuing XVs despite the lure of women\u2019s sevens, which gained national recognition when Australia won gold at Rio in 2016. Thanks to government and Australian Olympic Committee support and the high profile of the global sevens tour, that programme has been a leader for local women\u2019s rugby for more than a decade. But as XVs builds momentum, Rugby Australia is working to bridge the gap between the two formats.<\/p>\n The sevens representatives were given a chance to fast track their development in XVs this year. Only Tia Hinds made it all the way to the Wallaroos World Cup squad, with some facing injury and others withdrawing from consideration. Former Wallaby Mat Rogers, the manager of sevens star Maddi Levi, has been critical of the process, saying the transitioning players were \u201cset up to fail\u201d this year.<\/p>\n Fernandez said a historic separation between the programmes and competing calendars has prompted a lower level of cooperation in the past, but now there\u2019s a \u201cgenuine intent\u201d to work together and by 2029 a combined squad could be a reality. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to take some time and patience to work our way through that,\u201d he said. \u201cIdeally, we have a group of players who could play across both that train together, prepare together, and we are then more targeted around our benchmark events.\u201d<\/p>\n But for now, the Wallaroos\u2019 focus is on the first pool match against Samoa this week, screened at prime time on Saturday night in the eastern states. Fernandez hopes they enjoy it. \u201cThey feel the weight of expectation, they feel pressure,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this shouldn\u2019t feel like work, this should be something that you truly just have a smile on your dial when you run out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world of sport spins fast, as match follows tournament follows season in a dizzying cycle of sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-83905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}