With the Women’s Rugby World Cup in England rapidly approaching, Australia captain Michaela Leonard has spoken positively about the team’s growth this year while also acknowledging the greater heights this team could reach with the addition of some world-class debutants in 2025.
Three-time Olympian Charlotte Caslick is regarded as one of the greatest female rugby sevens players in the sport’s history. As a member of the gold medal-winning side from the 2016 Rio Games, Caslick has been a trailblazer for the growth of women’s rugby from day dot.
Australia Sevens coach Tim Walsh recently described Caslick as the team’s “Empress” on RugbyPass TV before continuing to praise the experienced campaigner’s influence. The 29-year-old is a role model, inspiration and hero for many, including new Aussie sevens captain Isabella Nasser.
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Caslick and Nasser are both part of a headline-grabbing group that’ll make the switch from the HSBC SVNS Serise to 15s next year in a bid to play at the World Cup. The pair will both ply their trade with the Queensland Reds, along with Maddison and Teagan Levi, and Khali Henwood.
Demi Hayes, Tia Hinds and Bienne Terita are all off the ACT Brumbies, while Sariah Paki has linked with the NSW Waratahs. It’s understood these nine women could play as many as two games for their respective clubs between SVNS Series stops in March.
While no sevens players have committed to Leonard’s Western Force, the prospect of working with marquee recruits and leaders like Caslick and Nasser within the national squad excites the Wallaroos’ skipper, who didn’t hesitate to praise both athletes.
“Across the last 12 months, two years… within the Wallaroos group we’ve had a huge focus on building leadership as a group task and building different players up to play roles within that and take different elements of our leadership group so that everyone has a voice and everyone has a say,” Leonard told RugbyPass.
“To have girls like Charlotte come in, Bella who’s quite new to the role but obviously has some really strong leadership qualities, it’s that opportunity to learn right? Leadership is probably one of those areas where you’re constantly learning, making mistakes, trying to better yourself, trying to better others, better the team.
“It’s really exciting to have girls who have been doing it at such a high level for so long in some pretty stressful, high pressure scenarios. It’s an opportunity for myself personally to get better but everyone else in our group and everyone else in the leadership group as well to learn from their experiences and likewise for us to share what we’ve learned in the last few years.
“The more people you have with that mindset of professionalism and high standards and wanting to achieve better and strive better, if we can get everyone aligned in that and focused on developing and growing and learning, the team’s going to grow at that much of a quicker rate.
“It’s really exciting for myself personally but I think for the whole group and hopefully them as well to have that opportunity to learn from different experiences.”
Caslick, Nasser, and the other members of Australia’s Sevens side have already begun pre-season training with their respective clubs. It’s the first step in a long journey to prove themselves worthy of a Wallaroos jersey ahead of next year’s World Cup.
Australia coach Jo Yapp already has an established group of players to choose from, and it’s a squad that’s full of confidence as well after taking out the first major trophy in Wallaroos history at World Rugby’s WXV 2 in South Africa.
The Wallaroos finished last in World Rugby’s Pacific Four Series to start their new era under coach Jo Yapp, and a few more losses followed before turning things around. They ended up getting the better of Wales, South Africa and Scotland in WXV 2 to secure the title.
For a team that never stopped believing and continued to work hard behind the scenes, those results in South Africa were a result of their efforts. Leonard lifted the WXV 2 trophy that night, and the skipper couldn’t be more proud of how the Wallaroos finished the year.
“It was a really nice way to finish the campaign last [season]. At the start of last [season], through coaching staff changes, we had a lot of new faces coming into the group, out of the group. There were challenges through that year for us, whether it was win, losses, whether it was adjusting to those changes,” Leonard reflected.
“It was a year of immense work from everyone involved, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, and unfortunately earlier in the year results just hadn’t come out way. It’s often tough to watch from the outside when you’re seeing things aren’t always successful but within the group we knew how hard we were working and how strong our bond was getting.
“To come into WXV 2, although not where we wanted to end up at the start of the year, the ability [and] the professionalism the group showed to come off the back of a few losses coming into the tournament to then turn around and put three back-ot-back really strong performances out there. It was an incredible thing to be part of.
“There was a lot of pride for the group of just how far we’d come in that 12-month period… first time getting to hold the silverware as a group is pretty exciting to be a part of as well. Anyone who’s played sport and won a premiership or won a final knows how good that feeling can be post-game, celebrating with all those people you’ve worked so hard with.”
