Series of exhibitions against top-ranked opponent provides growth in many areas

Canada’s women’s rugby sevens team opted for the school of hard knocks ahead of this weekend’s Olympic qualifying tournament in Langford, B.C.

And not the usual ones associated with a physical sport. What the team received from a series of exhibitions this summer against top-ranked Australia were lessons in tactics and play the organization believes will only help Canada in the long run.

“We’re really just striving to improve from our performance last year, and playing against the best teams in the world is really what we’re here to do,” said Olivia Apps, who will serve as captain when Canada plays in a five-team pool with Mexico, St. Lucia, Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The top two teams will meet in Sunday’s final with the winner earning a spot at next summer’s Paris Olympics. CBC Sports has live coverage beginning Aug. 19 at 1:30 p.m. ET.

“Every time we play against Australia it’s super competitive,” Apps said. “They’re really challenging on both sides of the ball and I’m really grateful that they’re here.”

Australia finished second in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series this season, seven spots ahead of Canada. Also participating in the friendly series were Hong Kong and Japan.

Canadian coach Jack Hanratty said the games were key for his team ahead of this weekend’s qualifier because it provided a competitive atmosphere, but without the suffocating pressure of high-stakes tournaments.

Hanratty believes that is especially important as the team has fielded different lineups most of the season, in part because of injury but also because of a change in development philosophy that saw players transfer back and forth between the sevens team and the 15s national team.

“It allowed us to have pressure from opposition teams, but it also allowed us to learn without the pressure of actually where you finish in a tournament,” Hanratty said. “We wanted to get the performance in games, but it didn’t necessarily mean that [it] was a win at all costs, and that really allowed us to grow.”

Growth is a key part of the sport, particularly on the women’s side. Australian coach Tim Walsh saw the time in Canada as not only beneficial for his team’s development, but for the sport as a whole.

“Ultimately, the better the opposition are, the better we’re going to be,” Walsh said. “Every team wants to win, so there’s that balance of keeping a competitive advantage, but also growing the game.”

“I think the Australian team, most of them have been playing rugby in the sevens specifically for a very long time,” said Canada’s Sophie De Goede, who has been part of the cross-pollination between the 15s, where she serves as captain, and the sevens, which depends less on physical bulk and more on outside speed. “They have a really good feel for the game.

“And so watching them play and getting to review the games has been a really good challenge for us, and we just want to keep learning every time we go out there.”

For Apps, who is one of just three Canadian players this weekend who competed in Tokyo two years ago, earning the chance to compete in Tokyo is No. 1 on her priority list. But the 24-year-old from Lindsay, Ont., sees a greater good to the experience. She hopes the visibility of her and her teammates makes the game that much more reachable for girls growing up in Canada.

“For me, growing up playing rugby, there were a few women’s rugby players that I can think of, the Kelly Russells, Steph De Goedes [Sophie’s mother] and other legends of the game, but they’re very few,” she said. “And now to be able to walk off a field and see hundreds of small little girls, boys that see us, know our faces, watch our games … is, honestly, literally the reason why I do this.

“To give them somebody to look up to so they can take my boots one day and they can walk on the field.”

De Goede, 24, never had to look far for that inspiration, as along with her mother, her father and brother represented Canada on rugby fields. She sees growing the game as a ongoing project.

“We want to grow the game,” she said. “And so to have the opportunity to put on the Canadian jersey and hopefully make rugby a more well-known sport with Canada, and have more young women and boys play the game, I think that’s kind of what we end up doing it for in the long run, is to have more people joining our incredible support and community.”

It’s what Australia’s Walsh hopes too.

“I think these women are really changing and reshaping not only women’s sport, but rugby,” Walsh said, and the hint of a smile forms on his lips.

“Rugby’s always been this barbaric sport played by gentlemen, and now it’s a barbaric sport played by women.”