Olive Hogan from Ballyduff has been selected as captain of the Irish Ladies Open tag-rugby team for the World Cup Series in Australia this coming October.
For Olive, it was an honour first to be selected on the team but secondly to be chosen as captain.
“I haven’t captained a team before and it’s been something I’ve been working towards, so I am absolutely delighted,” Olive told The Avondhu.
Her main duties as captain are to set a good example for the players and to encourage and motivate her team-mates.
The Irish team will travel to Sydney Australia on October 22nd where they will attend a training camp for a week before the games begin.
The team have been training hard in recent months and have been really focusing on their nutrition in the hopes that they will be as fit as they can be when they reach the World Cup.
Olive who works as a primary school teacher in Dublin, plays at least three times a week with a tag rugby club in the capital. The Irish team come together to train every three weeks but they often meet each other and play against each other at club level on a weekly basis.
NEWBIE
Olive is relatively new to the sport of tag rugby, playing her first ever match in 2011. A natural sportswoman with a competitive streak, she quickly took a liking to the sport and began to improve year on year. In 2016, she trained for Dublin and soon after was selected on the Irish team.
Although she didn’t play tag rugby in her childhood, sport was always a major part of Olive’s live. She was an sprinter with Grange AC and has many county and All-Irelands medals to her name. She also played Gaelic football when living in Ballyduff and has always found huge advantages in playing sport – not only for fitness but to meet new people and make new friends.
CHALLENGE
Having been to Australia before, Olive is confident that she will be able to adapt to the climate and she is glad that the Irish summer has been a hot and humid one as the girls got a taste of what it will be like to play in high temperatures in the World Cup.
The team are well prepared and are quietly confident that they will do themselves proud.
“We really hope to come out of the group stages at least,” said Olive. “After that, it all depends on who we get drawn against.”
The Irish Open Ladies team will be accompanied on the trip by five other Irish teams who will be competing in the World Cup in a number of categories. They will be up against 190 teams from 40 different countries and it is sure to be a major challenge.
However, it seems that Olive has a strategy to ensure that the occasion won’t phase her.
“When you have a goal, I don’t mind putting in the work. I’m usually mentally ready for the challenge,” she said.
BUSY
Olive has a busy few weeks ahead with test matches in September against the UK as well as some serious training regimes to keep up with.
Not only that, but Olive’s sister is getting married on October 13th and so, dress fittings and wedding rehearsals have to be slotted into Olive’s tight schedule but she is planning on taking the whole thing in her stride.
“It will be a busy few months but I’m very lucky being a primary school teacher I have had the summer time off to focus on my fitness,” she said.
We wish all the best to the Loreto past-pupil who will be doing Ballyduff, Fermoy and Ireland proud on Australian soil.
