It was a beautiful thing seeing World Cup prop Hope Rogers flowing into the San Diego backline. /// Photo: Carisa Weaver (view more) •
San Diego shook that fifth-place trend and won its first Women’s Premier League (WPL) championship over Glendale Sunday. If there was a distinguishing trait for the Surfers, it was the equal diffusion of talent across the field. Everyone was fit, but everyone was also comfortable sending a skip pass, slotting in between the centers, and syncing in a faster game. All credit goes to the Surfers for building a foundation for a free-flowing team game, but the club also benefitted from the consolidation of the USA national teams’ efforts around San Diego.
Five USA 15s forwards participate in a modified residency, which entails training at the OTC and housing assistance, but they are not contracted or full-time athletes (15s residents have jobs). They play their club ball with the WPL Surfers, and as USA Women’s National Team Associate Head Coach Peter Baggetta readied for his trip to Marietta, Ga., last week, he expected to see an uptick in those forwards’ fitness, decision-making and execution. Recount the performances of MVP Jordan Gray, Sam Pankey, Molly Kinsella, Hope Rogers and Jamila Reinhardt, and one imagines Baggetta was pleased.
But the 15s residency is more than forwards benefitting from 7s practices. In fact, one OTC training day per week is 15s-only, and that evolution reflects USA Rugby’s outlook on developing test-level athletes.
“Look at the top four teams – England, New Zealand, Canada, France – their players are playing 7s and 15s,” Baggetta said. “All of our players don’t play enough rugby. Let’s be honest – we’re not good enough to play four, five, six tournaments in a year and then just train the rest of the time.”
Baggetta isn’t concerned about whether players compete in the WPL, DI or DII club, or even college – a representative from each level of competition has been chosen for this week’s tour to France (roster forthcoming). As long as athletes are packing their schedules with 15s, 7s, the National All Star Competition (NASC) and also international fixtures, then that part of the formula begins to be addressed.
Another part of the formula is making the best use of the OTC’s resources as concerns both national team player pools.
“Contracts at the OTC are no longer 7s contracts; they’re USA Rugby contracts,” said Baggetta. “If you get a contract to the OTC, you’re competing for a spot on the 7s team when it’s on the circuit, but you can also be called up to the 15s team.
“All the players understood what the new contract set-up was like,” Baggetta said. “There could have been a player who only wanted to do 7s, and the response was: You don’t have that option. … It’s important to understand. There are a lot of young players who want full-time contracts and have a goal of the Olympics – but these contracts are not 7s specific. That’s not who we’re looking for.”
That ideology is reflected in the current group of contracted players. Post-Olympics additions like Nicole Strasko, Bulou Mataitoga and Megan Foster, among others, have distinguished themselves in 7s and 15s, and they join returners like Ryan Carlyle, Nicole Heavirland, Cheta Emba and Naya Tapper, all of whom have been capped in 7s and 15s. Expect to see OTC residents on the 15s tour, and if any injuries were incurred over the WPL weekend, the Chula Vista players will be the first called up.
“Richie [Walker], Pete [Steinberg] and I talk constantly,” Baggetta said of the coordination at the OTC between national team coaches. “We videotape every practice and scrimmage and camp, and that’s all shared. And I provide Walker with the outcomes that we like players who are going to France to work on during the week, 7s and 15s things.”
All of the OTC residents will be attending the winter NASC, which will bring the top 50 players together. After that assembly, the World Cup player pool will narrow down, ranging from 32-38 players, Baggetta estimated. That’s when the effort to get more of the World Cup player pool to San Diego will heighten.
“A lot of that is based on funding but the idea is that … leading up to the World Cup, we could have a bulk of the 26 players between the 7s and 15s residents training together,” Baggetta said. “It’s a huge cost savings for us, too, because we don’t have to fly people in and assemble. We just need to fly in coaches and additional players who aren’t in San Diego. That would be massive.”
As Baggetta and Walker surveyed the WPL championship last weekend, they had program-specific objectives in terms of scouting and monitoring players, but they were working together. And that is certainly a good thing.