As John Wayne said in Stagecoach, ”A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do”. Post Olympics, as part of the grieving process, (for Australian fans), here are a few words to hopefully provide possibly a bit of closure and acceptance.
It was a great six days of rugby watching. Cliché time: rugby was the winner. (Except for us Aussie fans at the pointy end of the tournament.) Lots of terrific tries, try saving tackles, big tackles, close games, excitement and a stadium chock full of fans.
For the Aussie men it was disappointing, but it was still pretty good. For the women it would be an understatement to say it was disappointing. On balance, loss aversion bias comes to mind “the pain of losing is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.”
So, while the men probably did better than some expected, the women’s performance unfortunately out-weighs that positivity and the great matches they did play.
Teagan Levi #5 and Maddison Levi #12 of Team Australia are comforted by members of the crowd. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
As invested as we maybe it is worth remembering it is just sport. However, the old Divinyls lyric ‘It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain’, comes to mind. It sure is apt in sport and the Aussie sevens teams’ Olympic experience.
Back to some positivity.
Rugby sevens at the Olympics was an enormous success. Sure there will the rugby sevens-deniers but six days of between 65-70,000 each day at Stade de France is huge for the sport. Arguably rugby has never had so many new eyeballs on it. (We just need to work out how to keep them engaged in the future.)
Apart from the athletics, I’m not sure what other sport will have more watching live than the rugby had.
As painful as the USA women winning the bronze medal is, they got some great coverage in the USA and a millionaire philanthropist gifted USA women’s rugby $4 million. You get the feeling rugby has never had so much attention in the USA. That must be good. (That pleasure and pain thing again.)
Will the success of the Olympics change the world? Probably not, but it might nudge the dial a little.
The men’s semi-finals had France, Fiji, South Africa and Australia. With the women’s semi-finals it was New Zealand, Canada, USA and Australia. What do you notice? Australia is the only country in both. Kudos to Rugby AUs sevens program, the coaches and players.
Congratulations to the Kiwi women who were a long way ahead as favourites all year and deserved to take out the gold. We also saw a bit of a north American revival with Canada Silver and USA Bronze. As flagged pre-tournament China are seriously developing, finishing sixth.
Worth mentioning Kiwi demi-god sevens coach Gordon Tietjens has been working as a consultant with the Chinese program. Who knows what has happened to the Fiji women who did not win a game and went down to Brazil and China. While there were more blow out scores than in the men’s tournament it was still enjoyable. With the performance of Canada and USA there is more much needed depth.
PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 28: Team Australia huddles before a women’s Pool B match between Australia and South Africa on day two of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on July 28, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Alex Ho/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
For the Aussie women the concept of missing a medal must be almost impossible to fathom. Since the last Olympics there would not even be a handful of tournaments where they missed a podium. Despite big early wins and some magnificent tries there was always a concern how their extensive injury list would impact. The loss of Kaitlin Shave for the tournament injuring a knee in the first game did not help. As a result, they did not quite have the depth on the bench. Some players seemed to play a lot of minutes. And the perennial issue of an opposition’s physicality came to the fore again.
Despite this they were oh so close to a medal. Typical of rugby sevens a couple of errors or missed tackles or a dropped ball makes a difference. They are still a superstar team.
One of the commentators referred to Faith Nathan as the iron lady, saying she had played in every game in every tournament this year. A super effort.
Australian rugby does not have many real superstars but Maddi Levi sure is one. On X OptaJonny posted “Maddison Levi scored the most tries (14), gained the most metres (553), beat the most defenders (21) and made the most line breaks (12) at the Olympic Women’s Sevens; Teagan Levi assisted the most tries (8) and made the most offloads (7). Sisters.”
On superstars it would remiss to not mention USA’s Ilona Maher. In social media terms she is now the biggest rugby star globally.
The men’s tournament had a story book ending with Antoine Dupont putting on a display in the Gold medal match for France against two time Olympic champions Fiji to win in Paris. Perfect.
(Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The Aussie men did what the Aussie men do, scrap and fight in every minute of every game. Just effort. Sometimes things just do not go your way when it would be handy to. They will be ruing the missed opportunity of a medal, it was so close. That is sport. But they played some terrific rugby, had some good wins including over Argentina.
The selection of Corey Toole and Mark Nawaqanitawase was justified. They contributed. Overall the team performed really well. Credit to coach John Manenti and his coaching team for building the team they did.
With the tournament starting before the opening ceremony the Aussie men at last got some great and well deserved coverage in the media.
Finally, without getting too deep but in the current world with so many issues going on, the enjoyment of sport and the Olympics is refreshing. As a rugby fan it was just great to see day after day, people, rugby fans and non-rugby fans, just enjoying rugby.
While it was a bit of a pain infused experience as an Australian rugby fan, the Olympics has been fantastic. Rugby was the winner.
As Clint Eastwood #DirtyHarry said “A man’s got to know his limitations”. That’s it for my rugby sevens musings.
