Rookie Revelations

by Christabelle Lim

---

Hello to you. Let me introduce myself. I am Christabelle, rookie to the NW7s team (with a horrifying rookie performance i overheard), trying to revive this dormant column with my explosive wit and witty humour. Expect no technical rugby stuff because i believe (rarrr) with all our skill reviews and wallies up in Borneo the last thing you'd want to read on a player's column would be technical skills.

12 of us (missing some of our beloved senior players) went up to Kota Kinabalu from 28th oct to 1st nov for the Asia Pacific Women's 7s, for three days of games against teams from Asia and Oceania (yes freaking big Islanders). We knew we had a mission to accomplish, and big meats to hit.

Reaching the stadium grounds, I could see where this was leading up to, our moment on the field on game day, but first we had a training to conquer in the squeeze-water-out-of-clothes rain. The dampening rain did nothing to our spirits, as we were all focused in training, but one important point i learnt was that intensity of training must be worked from within, and not only when we are pushed to do so.

I always liked rollercoasters, but such things are no good when it comes to games. We were rollercoastering our way through the first day of the tournament, earning us many 'talks of the day', and we all needed a good talking-to at night. Just like qigong, what we needed to do next was to channel all our energies and communication towards a same platform, at the same time/level/intensity and that was a major learning point number 2 for the team.

Now as a rookie, is it not so much the skill and experience that you have to match up to because you continually improve on it, but rather your mental capabilities. People always say senior players are 'hardened' by experiences, but I think that does not mean if you are a junior player you are allowed to be 'soft'; you just have to be as mentally strong as any other player, because i believe (rarr) a team IS as strong as its weaker player.

Coming out of a not-so-good day at the tournament was a test of the mental prowess of the team and it was time to show the grit and character of the team on day 2. I think we did pretty well and there were more ups than downs to our games, more sparks than wallies. If there were any punters at women's rugby games, i am sure they'd have hated us.

To the plate final it was and after all the awesome defending and defences we lay siege on, after 14 mins of poor visibility due to the rain and shifting contact lenses, in the words of the Cook Island captain: only one team can come away victorious (okay roughly the idea), and so we went away with a hint of sadness but heads held high and desire higher.

Looking back at the tournament and our games, 14 minutes is really not a lot, the queue from koi takes way longer. Yet we put our hearts and bodies on the line, stamp our arrival as a team and live out our dreams in those 14 mins. And i believe we can and will keep fighting for those 14 minutes till we get to fight for 20 minutes of our lives.

I was reading my journal for inspiration (not much) and day 3 wrote "I can't write too much cos i'm drunk!" (no i wasn't but anyhow,) to my dear teammates: I CANNOT DRINK thankyouverymuch.