Touch Rugby: SuperNanas are Series Winners!

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The England W30s team capped off an eventful year with a gold medal in the Series Final against Scotland W30s at the Touch World Cup 2011, coming back from a nerve-wracking 0-0 first half, to win 3-0.

The squad, comprising a vast range of experiences, from seasoned England regulars to those who had never played a competitive game of Touch before the trials in September, trained hard over a series of weekend camps across the country in the eight month build up to the World Cup. They combined these weekends with a detailed fitness programme put together by Andy Dean-Lee.

This commitment to training and fitness was made by every member of the team, despite finding out that the Women’s 30s grade had been scrapped because of Australia and NZ teams withdrawal, leaving Scotland and England with the option of entering their 30s teams into the Open competition, but with no ‘real’ medal to play for.

The team however made the decision to continue and went on to brave sub-zero temperatures, 10km time trials and various other punishments inflicted by their tireless coach TP and team captain Teresa Dean-Lee, finally making their way to Edinburgh in June a fit, cohesive team of ‘SuperNanas’ with Mascot ‘George’ to give that extra man support from the sidelines.

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The team was fortunate enough to be joined at this point by Aussie SuperCoach Mark Jones, who played a vital role in supporting player-coach TP and making some invaluable tweaks to the team’s defensive and attacking policies.

The first real test for the team came in a friendly warm-up versus the South African Women’s Open, achieving a respectable 3-1 loss – not bad against a team that was at that point ranked third in the world in the Opens grade.

England W30s then enjoyed four great days of touch, starting with a match against Australia Women’s Opens, far and away the best women’s team in the world – quite a lesson!, before facing Wales, Scotland, Japan, Austria and Germany. There was highs (9-1 win against Austria) and lows (9-1 loss to Wales) but a lot of great touch was played and the team improved throughout the tournament. And came out one of the least injured teams at the tournament.

England W30s unfortunately lost one of their key players, Fume Kokoali with a couple of broken ribs on the Thursday. Nonetheless, as 8am dawned on Finals day, England took the field confident in their ability to bring home the silverware. After a tense first half, with no score, captain TDL lead by example early in the second, scooping through to create the first try. With the additional confidence this brought, England took control of the game from that point, scoring another couple of tries to earn the well-deserved title of the best Women’s 30s team in the world.

Jessica Schol-Binks, Sportsister
The Women’s Sport Magazine

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