Heady Company

Further to this week’s R & M blog about women’s rugby, we bring the reader great news about CW’s, Caroline Crossley. Caroline started as a mini player and in recent years has sky-rocketed to the top of B.C. Age Grade teams.   After being identified by Rugby Canada in the Summer-2013 National championship, Caroline has recently (Sept., 2014) become part of the twenty-two strong, Centralized Carded athletes pool for the NSWT 7s program. Caroline is currently in training camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in San Diego with Canada’s NSWT Sevens players.

http://www.rugbycanada.ca/leagues/newsletter.cfm?clientid=3817&leagueid=0&page=85161

The players under the tutelage of Coach Tait and his team have been assembled in San Diego to train with and play against, their American and Irish counterparts. This camp is a pre-cursor for the next venue on the circuit, Sao Paulo, Brazil in February. The women’s program seems to have found a way to manage their VII’s and XV’s players. The funds available to the women’s program from Own The Podium and B2TEN sources have been integral in assisting their success. The women's IRB tournament schedule has recently been expanded to six tournaments (men play nine tournaments), with one of the venues selected for the first time to be in our backyard at Langford, for the weekend of April 18-19.

Caroline, at sixteen years of age is attending this training camp as the youngest girl in the squad and is relishing the opportunity to train full-time with the likes of Mag Harvey, Jen Kish, Ghis Landry, Kayla Mack, Many Marchak, Karen Paquin and Kelly Russell. As part of the NSWT 7s athlete pool and still only a high school student, she has only been able to train with the women periodically during the fall.   So the opportunity to be immersed in this training camp is a tremendous and exciting one for her. This training squad will be divided into two Maple Leaf teams that will compete in the Vegas 7s Elite women's division in February (12-15).

Caroline is an example of early, elite talent identification and should she not “get the nod” this time around, it surely won’t be too long before she is selected. She will be a leading light as she, Soph and her fellow team mates lead the Tricolors from juniors to women’s rugby. The club’s heartiest CONGRATULATIONS go out to you, Caroline. 'onya, girl!