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Captain Michaela Leonard reflects on Wallaroos' memorable 2024

Australia players celebrate with the WXV trophy after the team's victory as WXV 2 champions during the WXV 2 2024 match between Australia v Scotland at Athlone Sports Stadium on October 12, 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Johan Rynners - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)

After beating Scotland at Cape Town’s Athlone Stadium, Australia captain Michaela Leonard joined an exclusive club of one after leading the team to a title. Wins over Wales, South Africa and Scotland saw the Aussies claim the first major trophy in Wallaroos history.

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It hadn’t all been smooth sailing for the Wallaroos under coach Jo Yapp in 2024 after being caught on the wrong side of big scores more than once, but they showed resilience, character and potential to round out the year in style in World Rugby’s WXV 2.

“It was a really nice way to finish the campaign,” Leonard said with a smile. With a Women’s Rugby World Cup in England just around the corner, the Wallaroos have taken plenty of confidence out of their hat-trick of wins in the Western Cape.

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Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard on Australia SVNS players switching to 15s

Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard chat’s to Finn Morton about the news that 9 Australia SVNS players are jumping codes to play for their country at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

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Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard on Australia SVNS players switching to 15s

Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard chat’s to Finn Morton about the news that 9 Australia SVNS players are jumping codes to play for their country at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

Australia had finished last in World Rugby’s Pacific Four Series and suffered some other tough defeats to New Zealand, Ireland and Wales outside of that competition. Desiree Miller’s four-try haul in the win over Fiji was a shining light from an otherwise tough season up to that point.

After a tough 31-24 loss to Wales at Rodney Place, the Wallaroos prepared to take on the same foe in WXV 2 – winning that Test 37-5. The women in gold then got the better of tournament hosts South Africa 33-26 at Scotland 31-22 which brings this tale back to the start.

The Wallaroos won WXV 2.

It was the first major piece of silverware in team history.

“It was a really nice way to finish the campaign last [season]. At the start of last [season], through coaching staff changes, we had a lot of new faces coming into the group, out of the group. There were challenges through that year for us, whether it was wins, losses, whether it was adjusting to those changes,” Leonard told RugbyPass last week.

“It was a year of immense work from everyone involved, a lot of sacrifice, a lot of time, and unfortunately earlier in the year results just hadn’t come out way. It’s often tough to watch from the outside when you’re seeing things aren’t always successful but within the group we knew how hard we were working and how strong our bond was getting.

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“To come into WXV 2, although not where we wanted to end up at the start of the year, the ability [and] the professionalism the group showed to come off the back of a few losses coming into the tournament to then turn around and put three back-ot-back really strong performances out there. It was an incredible thing to be part of.

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“There was a lot of pride for the group of just how far we’d come in that 12-month period… first time getting to hold the silverware as a group is pretty exciting to be a part of as well. Anyone who’s played sport and won a premiership or won a final knows how good that feeling can be post-game, celebrating with all those people you’ve worked so hard with.”

But that success is in the past, and the Wallaroos want to build on going into a Rugby World Cup year. The group reassembled for a brief camp “not long after WXV 2” to go back over ideas and topics before pulling on their Super Rugby Women’s club’s jerseys early next year.

Leonard headlines a talented roster at the Westen Force, although the club has bid farewell to some regulars including veteran scrumhalf Kendra Fell. As for the other Australian SR Women’s teams, they’ve been boosted by some marquee recruits ahead of the new campaign.

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Maddison and Teagan Levi, Charlotte Caslick, Isabella Nasser and Khali Henwood have all joined the Queensland Reds, with nine stars from Australia’s HSBC SVNS Series side linking with SR Women’s teams.

Sariah Paki is off to the NSW Waratahs, while the trio of Demi Hayes, Tia Hinds and Bienne Terita will play for the ACT Brumbies. It’s understood they’ll all be able to play up to two matches in March during a four-week block between SVNS Series stops.

These sevens players could bring their own unique skillsets to a Wallaroos side hungry to grow, develop and learn before the showpiece event in England. It’s all part of the journey for the Wallaroos who will play five Tests on home soil in 2025.

“Incredible finish to the year from us. I think [it’s] huge for us as a group, building in confidence, and I guess having that experience of three back-to-back wins under our belt which is something I think was a first for us as well,” Leonard added.

“It’s huge for the group in learning how to win and learning how to bounce back from a big high to then focus and go into the next week. For us, finished the year at a really good point.

“Really excited and I have no doubts that we’re going to be starting off in a really strong position next year moving forward.”

Go behind the scenes of both camps during the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 2021. Binge watch exclusively on RugbyPass TV now 

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J
JW 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

120 Go to comments
f
fl 4 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

120 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Barrett and Prendergast put Leinster European rivals on notice Barrett and Prendergast put Leinster European rivals on notice
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