USA Rugby Women Eagles Combined Camp in FL Wraps Up

from Women Eagles:

The Women’s National Team (WNT) program hosted its first ever fully combined camp, which brought 95 athletes from the Under-20 Women, USA ‘A’ Developmental side and the Senior WNT to one location – the National Training Center (NTC) in Clermont, Fla., from Thursday, Feb. 26 – Sunday, March 1.
Camp Highlights

Thursday
The first day of camp consisted of fitness testing in the 40yd, 40m, Illinois agility and 300m shuttle. The testing is used as a tool to set standards for positions and test compliance to fitness training. Both Eagle and A squads were tested together. One of the things that keeps the Women Eagles competitive is fitness. Attending this 4-day camp, with constant contact, tested the physical abilities of all the players.

Friday and Saturday
The coaching staff split time between working on offense and defense. The coaches wanted to make sure the players had time to problem solve through tough situations. Very little time was spent drilling unless there was a particular problem that was magnified in the situation (stilling the defender, defensive alignment). Evenings were spent discussing team culture and team and individual goals as we are going forward to the 2010 World Cup.

Sunday
Eagles v USA A Match – Horrible weather, swirling wind and rain and temps in the 50s. The Eagles squad took the early lead but was answered by USA A. USA A dominated the contact area, much to the dismay of the Eagle forwards, however, the Eagle backs were able to score 2 more tries from the relatively small amount of clean, recycled possession. Final score: Eagles 15 – USA A 5. Standouts for the Eagles were flanker Jillion Potter (7), scrumhalf Kim Magrini and for USA A: flankers Kate Daley, Kristin Zdanczewicz and fullback Katie Dowty.

Head coach Kathy Flores said, “the idea of the camp was to provide an opportunity for the players of both groups to see the pathway and have a chance to work with and against their competition. The camp was successful in identifying those players who will be selected to go to the Can-Am in June to represent the USA in both a test match and developmental match.”

*Again, thanks to the Florida Rugby Union for helping those players that could not make it home Sunday night, for more info on that, see this post.