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australia’s women’s 7s team win consecutive Dubai titles as coaches fight to save careers

THE success of Australia’s rugby sevens teams in the UAE might not be enough to save the futures of coaches Tim Walsh and John Manenti.

Australia’s women’s team, coached by Manenti, claimed back to back World Sevens titles for the first time since 2017-18, defeating Fiji 15-5 in the Dubai 7s final.

“A double tournament is way harder the second week,” new skipper Demi Hayes said.

“You’re always sore and complaining about all these aches and pains, but we had one goal in our mind and that was winning and going back to back and that’s what we did.”

Soon after, Walsh’s men’s team blew a tryscoring opportunity with 22 seconds remaining to go down 10-7 to South Africa in the final.

It was the first time since the 2018 Sydney 7s Australia had both their men and women in a final - a tournament they each won.

The silver medal result came a week after South Africa blew Australia apart in a quarter-final one week earlier, before Australia rallied to finish fifth.

“A blend of leadership, naivety, strategy and youthful exuberance delivered a nearly perfect outcome,” Walsh said in a statement.

“Pre-Olympic creative initiatives and innovations delivered the team an opportunity to perform.

“The diverse mix of players provided individuality to be expressed.

“The engine room and leadership of Nick Malouf, Henry Hutchison and Josh Turner set the standards for the young guns to flourish. Corey Toole, Ben Dowling and Dietch Roache thrived in the environment and performed exceptionally.”

The impressive outings, which came with New Zealand’s men’s and women’s teams missing because of the Covid pandemic, came mere months after both teams crashed out in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics.

Their underwhelming results proved the catalyst for Rugby Australia asking both experienced and 2016 gold medal Olympic-winning coaches to reapply for their roles.

Nor did the men’s team’s involvement in a boozie plane trip home from Tokyo go down well with the governing body, who were forced to apologise for their involvement just days after they were wrongly accused of messing up their quarters in the Olympic village.

The duo had their interviews last month and are yet to get any indication whether they will hold onto their jobs.

It is understood that their success, which saw the women’s team record consecutive series wins for just the third time, will count for little.

Sources have told foxsports. com.au the high performance review and interviews were concentrating purely on the results and set-up of the sides up until the Olympics.

RA will make a decision over the coming fortnight as to whether they resign their coaches. Yet given the Commonwealth Games will be played at the end of July any decision to move either on will come with an inherent risk.

RA has been going through a restructuring of their high performance unit, including the sevens programs.

The women’s squad was reduced to just 15 players while the men’s squad were cut to just eight full-time players as part of cost-cutting measures by RA.

“It’s a really exciting time for our Sevens programs with an important three years ahead featuring the Commonwealth Games, Rugby World Cup 7s and Paris Olympics ahead,” RA Director of Rugby said in a statement last month.

“The new collaborative approach between our sevens programs and the Super Rugby clubs will ensure there are opportunities for all of our elite development players to get game time at an international level, benefiting both formats of our game.”

Reds’ finals hopes dealt massive blow after season-ending injury as latu returns to australia

WaLLaBIES coach Dave Rennie was in Melbourne on Monday talking up Australia’s competitiveness and the importance of depth. As he was doing so, the news came through that his biggest trump card was down for the count.

In a crushing blow for the Queensland Reds’ hopes of securing a home Super Rugby semi-final, Taniela Tupou - Australia’s most dominant figure in the competition - is expected to miss the rest of the domestic season following a calf strain.

Tupou did not feature in the second half against the Chiefs, as he cut a forlorn figure on the sidelines with ice trapped to his tree-trunk left calf and right foot and was forced to watch his side go down 25-27 in Brisbane.

A QRU statement confirmed his injury on Monday, with the Reds “seeking further medical advice” around his injury.

With Test playmaker James O’Connor and talented outside backs Jordan Petaia and Suliasi Vunivalu already on the sidelines, it was a sight few in Queensland, indeed across Australia, wanted to see. Without O’Connor pulling the strings, whose direction and decisionmaking has been dearly missed, the Reds have lost back to back matches for the first time this year and risk losing touch with the top four.

Tupou’s loss is just as significant.

James anderson returns to england team for India test as Jamie overton drops out

SaM Billings remains in the squad as Ben Foakes continues to recover from Covid; watch England vs India live on Friday from 9.30am on Sky Sports Cricket, with play getting under way at 10.30am.

Ben Stokes has announced James Anderson will return to the team in place of Jamie Overton for England's rearranged final Test against India, starting on Friday.

The England skipper also confirmed Ben Foakes remains out as he continues to recover from Covid, meaning Kent's Sam Billings keeps his place behind the stumps. "Unfortunately Foakesy hasn't recovered as well as we'd have liked him to," Stokes said. "So Sam is going to stay in the team and keep. "(Foakes) hasn't really recovered from last week and doesn't feel like he could give the best account of himself this week. We took the decision out of his hands and said 'get yourself better'."

Overton's omission follows an impressive performance against New Zealand that saw him fire 97 with the bat as part of a key partnership with Jonny Bairstow to spark an England revival from 55-6.

He had replaced Anderson in the team as England's record wicket-taker sat out the final game due to injury. "That's how sport at the top level works sometimes," Stokes said. "It must be very disappointing for him but he can walk away knowing he did everything he could."

ryan appointed director of elite performance by brentford

BEn Ryan, who famously led Fiji to their first Olympic gold, in Rugby Sevens, has been appointed to the new role of Director of Elite Performance by Brentford.

The 50-year-old, who was also England Rugby Sevens coach from 2006 to 2013, is taking his first role in football.

The Director of Elite Performance role was advertised on TGG in April and the remit was to “lead all aspects of player and staff performance and development” outside of technical and tactical football matters.

Chris Haslam will remain under Ryan as Head of Athletic Performance, which is a more hands-on role. Phil Giles, who took on sole Director of Football duties after Rasmus Ankersen left the club, said: “Director of Elite Performance is a role I think will help us reach even higher levels of performance across both players and staff. When Rasmus left us in December 2021, I spent some time thinking about the future direction of the department and what skills and experiences I felt we needed moving forward. "After a thorough recruitment process, Ben emerged as the outstanding candidate. He brings huge experience of how to reach elite level across a range of sports and has a coaching background which will help him work effectively with Thomas. He is also a Brentford fan, so already understands the Club, knows what we’ve achieved already, and what we want to achieve together in future."

Stokes also offered his backing to opener Zak Crawley after the Kent man endured a difficult time against New Zealand's bowling attack, managing four single-digit scores between knocks of 43 and 25. "When we picked the squad before we'd even played a Test match the squad was picked on the basis that every player in every position is the best player in England to carry us forward in the way we want to," said Stokes. "This team and this squad is going to be given a lot of time to perform. Zak Crawley is still in the plans going forward regardless (of what happens against India)." "We've just beaten the best team in the world 3-0, India are obviously a completely different opposition, different dynamic of team, but we concentrate on ourselves, we understand what we do well. "We have also taken into account who we are playing against, but because the opposition changes it doesn't mean we're going to change."

IndIa now thIrd most common place of bIrth of australIan resIdents...

COnTd. FROM PG 1

Dr Pradeep Taneja, an academic fellow of the Australia India Institute, said he wasn’t surprised that India had become the third largest country of birth for Australians.

“It’s been happening for a while,” he said.

Taneja said numbers jumped after the Howard government in 2006 signed a memorandum of understanding with India to encourage Indian students to take up student visas to complete vocational training in Australia.

“Australia has always had a smattering of Indian migrants,” he said. “Before they were essentially highly skilled white collar migrants [but] we saw at that time a wave of Indian students.

“That trend has continued, even though the link between vocational education and migration has weakened somewhat.”

Taneja said migration from India to Australia had increased as a result of deepening strategic and economic ties between the two countries since the turn of the century.

“Australia has emerged as a popular destination for Indians seeking opportunities, not just for themselves but their children, and better quality of life,” he said.

“Since 2007 there have been better relations between Australia and India, and under the previous Coalition government we saw a qualitative change in Australia’s relationship with India.”

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, met India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, at the Tokyo Quad meeting in May, and has pledged to forge stronger economic links with the nation while diversifying from China.

Taneja said Australia’s increasingly strained relationship with China had also played a part in India’s rise.

“No doubt the relatively poor state of the bilateral relationship has led to a decline in the number of [Chinese] migrants coming to Australia,” he said.

“We’ve seen a reverse cycle; some well-off Chinese migrants are deciding to go back to China so it’s not surprising numbers are down.”

Taneja, whose current research focuses on the rise of China and Sino-Indian relations, was a graduate student at Peking University in the 1980s and worked in China for a number of years. He suggested a shared colonial history may make it easer for Indians to assimilate in Australia.

“Indians find it easier to settle in this country, unlike migrants from noncommonwealth countries like China,” he said.

“Earlier, if you looked at Indian media, there was hardly any coverage of Australia. Now, media covers Australia quite extensively beyond cricket. The day Labor won the election, we saw vibrant media in languages like Hindi about Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong.” Taneja said “almost every family” in Punjab now knows somebody who lives in Australia. “It’s a virtuous circle, the more people come the more information spreads about Australia as a migrant destination,” he said. “We’re already seeing the cultural impact, Indian films take up hundreds of cinema screens. It’ll contribute to a more vibrant and multicultural Australia.” The second largest increase in country of birth was Nepal, now the 11th most common nationality in Australia. An additional 70,000 people were counted in the 2021 census, an increase of 123.7%, bringing the total to 122,506. The majority of Nepalese migrants since 2017 have arrived on skilled state and territory and partner visas, Department of Home Affairs figures show. Nursing, accounting and cooks are the most popular professions. Business development manager Madan Mani Adhikary became a permanent resident in Australia in 2019 after arriving from Nepal as an international student. Adhikary said many young Nepalese adults struggle to grow their careers at home, while Australia provides greater opportunity for settlement. “Back home people have a lot of exposure of Australia’s lifestyle and opportunity,” he said. “They see people achieving here quite easily which is really hard and beyond expectations back home. By nature Nepalese people are hardworking and dedicated, [but] there’s political instability and low economic growth. That’s a pushing factor. Religious diversity is also increasing. For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identify as Christian, while there have also been increases in other religions such as

Hinduism, which grew by 55.3% to 684,002 people, or 2.7% of the population.

The number of people who use a language other than English has also risen to more than 5.5 million people, up by nearly 800,000. Mandarin continues to be the most common language other than English used in the home, followed by Arabic. But Punjabi, spoken in the Indian province of Punjab, had the largest increase, growing more than 80% compared to 2016. Vaibhav Gaikwad arrived in Australia on a University of Newcastle scholarship and became a citizen in 2019. His wife joined him in 2016. Gaikwad said while India’s diaspora has widened, the majority of migrants remain from a middle or upper class background. Gaikwad is the first in his family to study internationally. He and his wife now work as chemical engineers. “It’ll take time for that to change the class and caste aspect to [migration],” he said. “Most students who come here are from dominant castes. There are families who have settled from all backgrounds, [but] it’s an uphill battle.” The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ chief statistician, Dr David Gruen, said the census collected information on more than 250 ancestries and 350 languages. The top five ancestries followed previous trends and were largely Anglodominated with English at 33%, Australian at 29.9%, Irish at 9.5%, Scottish at 8.6% and Chinese at 5.5%.

Source: The Guardian