RUGBY SEVENS
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CHARLES Sturt University student Darcie Morrison took a chance last year when she applied online for a sports draft that led her to doing physical testing to see whether she would be suitable for any specific athletic endeavours.
Always into athletic pursuits, she ended up being drafted into the Australian Institute of Sport. The national sporting body recommended that she pursue either combat sports, or rugby sevens.
Morrison chose the latter, and in a few months that decision will be vindicated when she pulls on her national colours to represent the Australian Universities women’s sevens team at the World University Games in Wales.
“I’ve only been playing sevens for a year so it is a bit of a shock, I’m pinching myself a bit,” the Forbes native and current exercise science student said.
“I was part of the CSU side that won gold at the Australian University Games and from there was picked for a selection camp and they picked the national side out of that.
“It started by applying online for a draft which led to getting drafted with the AIS. They suggested that I had the right body type and fitness for either combat sports or sevens, I went with sevens and it has paid off.
“Probably my best asset as a footballer is speed, I play at fullback for St Pat’s in their league tag side in Group 10 and generally play wing-centre in sevens.”
Having not played rugby previously, the physicality of the sport could have been an issue for Morrison. However, that hasn’t been the case and she has been able to cope well with the brief but explosive demands of the sport.
“With the tackling, a lot of it is one-on-one stuff and chasing, so it isn’t going to be as physical as normal rugby where you have numbers in every tackle,” she said.
“In some respects I think the training is a lot harder physically than the playing, but maybe it just feels that way because of the adrenaline when you’re out there playing.
“I think as a team Australia have pretty high expectations when they go to competitions like this one. I don’t really know who we’re going to be up against, so it is hard to guess how we’re going to go.
“But the way women’s rugby, particularly sevens is growing, I’d be surprised if the standard wasn’t extremely high.”
The current year marks a significant shift for sevens, as it enters Olympic competition in Rio de Janeiro.
It is a move which has put a much bigger focus on the reduced-numbers format.
Eventually Morrison is hoping that her expertise in the sport can lead her to those sort of heights.
“Being in this squad has hopefully opened up a few opportunities for me. With some luck the people in charge of the opens women’s sevens team will be looking at us and maybe from there it would be possible to move into a development squad,” she said.
“Already I’ve been doing some training with the New South Wales opens team, so that might lead to something.”
Morrison is joined by former St Pat’s team-mate, fellow CSU student and ex-Bathurst Goldminers basketballer Olivia Patterson in the Australian squad.
The Australian Rugby Union has come to the party by offering sponsorship to help fund the trip, as have CSU.