lifestyle

Sport on Sat: The best moment in sport this year didn't make it into the newspapers.

A few years ago Ellia Green was a sprinter with zero footy experience…

 

 

 

There were two minutes left to go on the clock.

The score was 15 – 12. Canada – the world’s third best rugby team – was in the lead. And it looked like they were going to win the three-game rugby sevens tournament against our Australian girls.

The Aussie girls had lost the first game against the Canadians, but won the second match – so it was all down to what was going to happen in the third match.

And, as it turned out, what was going to happen in that final two minutes.

Ellia Green, an Australian winger, hadn’t been happy with her performance during the game, and knew that it was time to do something spectacular.

So with mere seconds left on the clock, she got hold of the ball – and ran 75 metres to score a try, bringing the lead 17-15.

It’s one of the most epic tries ever been scored in women’s rugby. And it’s had nearly 200,000 views so far.

You can see the video of that try below:

 

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Needless to say, the girls walked away as tournament winners – which puts them in an excellent position for the 2014-15 IRB Women’s Sevens World Series, which kicks off on 4-5 December in Dubai.

From there, the team will be travelling to Brazil and Atlanta (USA) in February, Canada in April and London and Amsterdam in May.

The top four teams from the series will end up going to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Last year, our Aussie girls finished second in the series – four points behind New Zealand.

I had a chat to Ellia – champion try-scorer of the year – to ask not only about last weekend’s game, but about all the games coming up.

Here’s what she told me:

How did it feel to score that try over the weekend?

Good, good, it was a really good feeling. To be honest, at the time, I didn’t notice it was so close to the end – I didn’t really pay attention to the score board or the clock. I hadn’t really done anything spectacular that match and I was just thinking, I better do something good. Seeing it go over the line and hearing the Aussie crowd cheering was just amazing! So I’m so thankful for that.

How did you get into rugby?

My mum put me in the little athletics when I was little. So I was into sprinting for about 10 years, and it was my dream to be in the Olympic games as a 100 and 200m sprinter – and then my cousins told me about rugby sevens, so I went to a trial. I hadn’t played a game of sevens before, and they put me in the team and I was petrified! I called my mum and was like, “they want me to play a game and I don’t know what to they want me to do!” And she just said, “run and don’t let anybody catch you.”

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Ellia Green in action.

Had you played any kind of footy before that?

I played for fun with my brother, but never for a team or anything like that. But I love it now, I love the adrenaline – there is nothing like running fast up a field or wing and hearing the crowd chanting. I never had that in athletics.

So what’s your training schedule like?

We currently train Monday to Friday and we have Wednesdays off. We check in in the morning and go see doctors and physics, we start training on the field at about 9.30 for about 2 hours. Then we have lunch and then go to the gym for about an hour.

Everyone is currently training really hard ahead of the IRB series – everyone wants to be the best in the world. For the next season coming up, New Zealand will be our main competition.

What kind of reactions do you get from people when you tell them you play women’s rugby?

They ask if we have the same rules as the boys. The rules are exactly the same! The girls are just as skilled as the boys and it’s full contact. People also usually ask if we’re the Australian hockey team – we’re always saying, nah, we’re the rugby team. They just don’t understand. But we’re slowly trying to get the name out a bit more, and it’s getting to be a bigger deal now.

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What would you say to any girls contemplating getting into rugby?

If you want to get involved, go try touch rugby and build form there. Just to give it a go. It’s given me so many opportunities t0 travel the world and I came from being a 100m sprinter!

If you’d like to get into rugby sevens, the Australian Rugby Union is currently searching for the next generation of Rugby Sevens stars to join its program at the world-class Sydney Academy of Sport facility.

It doesn’t matter if you are a sprinter, touch footy player or play any other sport, male or female – you’re welcome to try out.

National talent searches will take place across the country on Sunday, 26 October (Sunday, 2 November in Western Australia) with a view to finding stars that have the potential to shine at the Olympics Games for Australia in Rio in 2016 or Tokyo in 2020.

For more information, go here.

And in other sports news from the week…

– Basketball team the Canberra Capitals has a new captain! It’s  Abby Bishop, a 25-year-old who’s determined to bring the silverwear back to Canberra. Interestingly, Bishop juggles basketball with parenting her one-year-old niece, Zala, who she voluntarily took custody of last year.

– The Women’s National Basketball League kicked off last night, with the Melbourne Boomers playing the Canberra Capitals at the State Basketball Centre. Tonight, the Canberra Capitals will face off against the Sydney Flames at AIS Arena. Buy tickets through Ticketek.

– Our Aussie netballers have won the Constellation Cup netball Test, 51-47. They managed a 4-0 sweep of the series over the Kiwis. Congratulations, ladies!

– And maybe the most unexpected sporting news of the week… the topless women in body paint that appeared at the Women in Sport awards on Monday night. We’re still confused as to why they were there. You?

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