The Canadian women’s Rugby Sevens team enters the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series season with a revamped squad and a new interim coach.
Irish-born Jack Hanratty has been tasked with leading the team with back-to-back events in Dubai by the end of the year. The first will start behind closed doors at Sevens Stadium on Friday. Spectators will be allowed in the second event in December. 3-4.
Canadian women are in a pool with Fiji, Ireland, Great Britain and Russia. Canadian men play in a pool with Olympic champions Fiji, Australia and France.
It’s been 663 days since the Women’s Sevens Series was last promoted and New Zealand won the Sydney Sevens in February. 2,.
Due to the recent times, the women’s season was canceled, although the Canadians participated in two Mini-events – in Vancouver and Edmonton in September – in which several high-profile teams were unable to participate due to travel restrictions.
The New Zealand men’s and women’s teams, the series champions and the Samoans will not participate in Dubai. The Canadians have placed second in the last two events in Dubai.
Elissa Alarie, Olivia Apps, Pam Buisa and Breanne Nicholas are the only survivors from the Canadian Olympic team in the Dubai team.
These four plus Emma Chown have a combined 51 World Series tournaments under her belt. The other eight will make their tour debuts.
Rugby Canada says Olympic veterans Charity Williams, Keyara Wardley, Julia Greenshields and Karen Paquin are unavailable for selection, either through injury or for other reasons.
Buisa, Gonzalez and Paquin were part of the last 15 tour of Britain.
Former captain Ghislaine Landry and her Olympians Britt Benn, Bianca Farella, Kaili Lukan and Kayla Molesch have retired or taken their time for Rugby.
Dubai is a fresh start for the Women’s Sevens program, after a formal complaint under Rugby Canada’s Bullying and Harassment Policy and a disappointing ninth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics.
Rugby Canada stated that while an independent review of the complaint concluded that “the behavior described in the complaint reflected the experience of the 37 Nsw7s (national Senior Women’s sevens) athletes,” it was not behavior that fell within the definition of harassment or bullying at the time.
The exact charges against former coach John Tait have not been made public. Tait called it “unfounded,” but resigned. He is now the Technical Director of B.C. Rugby.
“We really focused on bringing love back to the game,” Hanratty said. “And a Kind of Reboot.”
“The only thing I’m going to say is that the athletes were really open,” he added. “With the new coaches, there is a certain level of confidence that needs to be built. Of course, they need to understand us, our philosophies and our coaching styles, and we need to understand them as athletes and how they explore the game.”
Hanratty, 32, is supported by former 15s and Sevens player Brittany Waters, the head coach of the University of Victoria Vikes Women’s team. With the search for a permanent coach underway, he says they are solely focused on the two Dubai events.
“What we are focusing on is what we can do every day to make it a really positive and fun environment where athletes can focus on the game of Rugby and develop their knowledge about the game of Rugby.”
The septuagenarians, bronze medallists at the Rio Olympics under Tait, were coached this summer in Tokyo by Australian Mick Byrne.
Hanratty served as Kelly Russell’s assistant at both September sevens events. He is also an assistant coach for the U-15 women’s team, head coach of the U20 women’s national team, head coach of the Nova Scotia men’s and women’s teams and coach of the Rugby Canada Academy at the Canadian Sport Centre (CSC) Atlantic in Halifax.
Canada Women’s coach Sandro Fiorino calls Hanratty “a strong communicator” who knows the Canadian Rugby landscape.
“A breath of Fresh Air. And that’s ideal. He has a lot of energy, it’s great,” Fiorino said.
Hanratty started playing rugby in his hometown of Skerries, a coastal town 35 kilometres from Dublin.
During his time with the Sevens Squad, he continued to work as a consultant for CSC Atlantic and Rugby Nova Scotia.
He worked as a development manager for Leinster Rugby when he came to Canada nine years ago, initially for seven days to run a course for a Rugby club in Halifax. This became a sabbatical for the summer.
On his return to Ireland he interviewed for a job at Rugby Nova Scotia, I think it could take about a year. He’s still here.
“Although the Irish accent is there, through the music and my love for seafood and everything else, I feel like an absolute East Coast driver,” said Hanratty, who passed his citizenship test in October before heading West to take charge of the Sevens team.
