How fit, fast, strong and skilful do you need to be to crack the Aussie 7s
Watch some of Australia’s fittest, fastest, strongest and most skilful players in action in the biggest Sevens tournament in the world. There’s still time to book your trip to this year’s Hong Kong 7s on April 5-7 though our mates at Cathay Pacific.
Watching rugby sevens is typically enough to make most people tired.
So as we head towards next month’s Hong Kong 7s and this year’s Olympics, we thought we’d take a look at just how fit, fast, strong and skilful you really need to be to play for Australian Men’s or Women’s sides.
We’ve all got a mate who thinks he or she could still handle it.
So we caught up with the Aussie 7s camp to prove that said mate can’t and probably never could have matched it with some of our countries best and most unique athletes.
Fitness
Sevens players rarely stop running and while games seem tough, training seems even more brutal.
“Traditionally, rugby coaches have used the Bronco test to measure fitness but what we’ve actually found is that we’ve had players come in and do well in the Bronco, but then struggle with the high speed repeat effort nature of Sevens,” Mick Stephen, Head of Athletic Performance for the Men’s program told Rugby News.
“Aerobic fitness is a great base, but if you don’t have the ability to hit constant high speed repeat efforts, along with a decent top end speed, you’re going to find things pretty tough.”
Stephen said the Aussie 7s use what they call repeat high speed testing to measure how “Sevens fit” a player is.
To do this, players run a 3 x 300 metre shuttle, made up of six continuous repeat 50 metre shuttle efforts between the tryline and the halfway line.
Each 300 metres is expected to be completed in under 60 seconds.
After a one minute break, the players are at it again and complete three sets in total.
“We’re looking at how quickly the players pace drops off and their overall high speed capacity and output,” Stephen explained.
“Our fittest guys will hold their pace at around 55-56 seconds all the way through. Others will drop off over time. They might start at 55, then they drop off to 60, then 65 or 70 seconds, an as example.”
“Our top end guys like Josh Turner, Henry Paterson and Nathan Lawson are hitting 55-57 seconds consistently all session.”
Speed
The old adage suggests that you can’t coach speed, but Stephen and his coaching team sure seem to be trying hard.
The coach explained that he measures two types of speed – peak speed and speed capacity.
“For peak speed we look at maximum velocity, essential, who is the quickest guy or girl on the paddock. Nowadays though, we predominately measure that through GPS units worn throughout training and tournaments,” Stephen explained.
“We also use traditional speed gate testing, similar to the 40 yard dash that you see in the NFL combine.
“The interesting thing is that some players don’t perform as well in a structured testing environment as they do in a more natural training environment.
“There are quite a few guys who record quicker times during field training sessions or in a match then they do in the testing and at the end of the day, that’s what we’re looking for.
“For speed capacity, we look at a player’s ability to hit speed and then do so multiple times in a short period.”
Stephen said the coaches again rely a lot on GPS data collected during training and tournaments to develop individualised training plans for each player.
On the training paddock, they measure this using a repeat speed ability test where players complete twelve 20 metre sprints every 20 seconds.
“It’s a similar concept to earlier although this test is operating at a higher speed threshold. We record the time and velocity of the first rep and then track the deficit of both over the remaining reps,” Stephen explained.
“Henry Palmer is a young kid out of Canberra. He joined us in late October from the Brumbies academy and he’s got serious wheels.
“Hadley Tonga hasn’t debuted on the World Series yet, he’s fresh out of Kings but is another super quick athlete.
“Darby Lancaster is also in the top three but obviously he’s back with the Melbourne Rebels at the moment.”
Strength
While strength is an important component of rugby sevens training, Stephen said there is slightly less focus on this area compared to the XV man game where there are varied positions, body shapes and match demands.
None the less, it remains a significant priority.
“From a strength perspective, we target the majority of our squad as we would elite outside backs in XVs.
“We use 1-RM repetitions relative to bodyweight and our main lifts are fairly traditional being squat, bench press, bench pull, chin up and power cleans.
“It’s no secret we’re a fair bit smaller than the Fijians, Argentinians and All Blacks in terms of body composition and squad make up, so we do need our guys to be as strong as possible to combat this, and we’ve got some seriously strong blokes pound for pound throughout the squad.
“Relative to bodyweight, our smaller men Maurice Longbottom, Matt Gonzalez and Henry Hutchison top the charts, but I could easily name plenty of others as well to be fair.”
While body composition is an important factor, Stephen said strength was super important from a resilience and an injury risk reduction perspective.
“Because of the intense running and contact demands, they’ve got to be strong and like anything, if they aren’t strong before they start to run extensively and compete in fierce collisions, they’ll typically pick up niggly injuries which can keep them off the training paddock and out of contention.”
Skill
All of the above is largely pointless, according to Stephen, if players can’t catch, pass and tackle come game time.
“Ideally we want 13 guys at a tournament that can perform at their peak for six games over a weekend and that’s not easy to do.
“If you look at the roster of the men’s squad, we’ve worked really hard on our depth over the last 12 to 18 months and that’s lifted the skill level and standards of training.
“There’s not much of a gap between our best players and the newer guys in the squad.”
Stephen said the squad complete four to six field sessions a week that will target core elements like catch and pass, contact, breakdown and live game scenarios.
He added the current men’s squad were able to spend more time on skill and game specific based training because the level of Sevens fitness and tolerance for the majority of the squad is so high.
“Previously, a Sevens squad might have spent 70% of their time on rugby and 30% on conditioning and in some cases a larger split towards conditioning.
“But because our squad have developed significantly and compete at a higher level across the board, we’re now able to spend 80-90% of our time on rugby specifics and 10-20% on specific conditioning.
“They are still working just as hard and reaching the required training demands, but they’re doing a lot of it with a rugby ball in hand and that seems to be working well for this group.”
When asked who the most skilful player in the men’s squad, Stephen named close to the entire squad.
“Maurice Longbottom is unbelievable. He’s got spiders on him half the time and he’s really developed as both an athlete and a rugby player over the years.
“Nick Malouf is also right up there. He’s our captain and it’s not so much his words but his actions on the field and in training that make him such a invaluable asset. Henry Hutchison is another that springs to mind, he’s been a main stayer of the program and really sets the standard in training and on match day.
“I could keep going but you get the idea. We’re really excited about the group we’ve got currently and about the big year we’ve got ahead.”