“Unity” is main focus for Asian Games, says Indian 7s Women’s Rugby skipper Sheetal

New Delhi [India], August 20 (ANI): Sheetal Sharma, the captain of India Rugby 7s women’s team, on Sunday said that a lot of focus will be on ‘team unity’ during the upcoming Asian Games. 

The multi-sport event is scheduled to take place in China from September 23 to October 5. 

In an exclusive interview with ANI earlier this week, the India Rugby 7s women’s team captain talked about the Asian Games, the growth of Indian women’s rugby and sports in general, growth in infrastructure, support from Rugby India etc. 

Speaking about ideology and learning to be adopted during the Asian Games, Sheetal said, “When I attended that camp, I was the captain. I learnt a lot of things from seniors, juniors, staff and coaches. My aim would be that we maintain our unity and bond during the Asian Games and other future tournaments. Because physically, we are smaller as compared to other teams and have a mixed group with some big looking and some small people. Every individual should give his best, no matter what we have. When we work in unity, we show a lot of energy and other countries like our game.” 

Talking about the progress in Indian women’s rugby and rugby in India in general, Sheetal said that a lot of improvements have taken place in terms of coaching, nutrition, jerseys etc. She first represented India in 2019. 

“When I had come in the starting, we had only one coach for training. Now as time passed, we got sponsors, strength and conditioning coaches, and dieticians. We do training for strength and conditioning, we have physios available 24/7 for us. We have a dietician. We go to the gym for exercising. Whenever something happens to us, physios deal with it. Now, we also have more nutritional supplements, something we did not have much initially. Our nutrition has improved, we are taking all three meals plus supplements. Overall we have a better diet. We also get five jerseys now,” she said. 

She said that the federation has shown a lot of support to players on and off the field. 

“When you are a player, you work hard and want to earn money, because you are giving your time to this game. Now, we are earning a lot of money with tournaments. We also get money from camps. The federation supports us on-field and off-it, even when we are at our homes. They personally call us and make sure our needs are met. They sort out every of our personal and professional matters,” said Sheetal. 

Talking about her team’s three medal wins at a continental level last year. She said that it was not only their performance but also the goal and effort of players and rugby personalities who came before them. 

“These people built our sport and took it to school, university and state levels. Earlier, we used to play one or two tournaments. Now, we play at least 10-15 tournaments, which is good for us. Our hard work is getting us good results. We get support from our families and now people recognise what rugby is,” she said. 

Talking about the ongoing camp for Asian Games, she said that the camp started on July 31 and will be 50 days long. 

“We have a set schedule, three trainings per day, we have talked to coaches. They have also planned how we will play at this level. We do not want to reveal our strategies. It would be a surprise factor for others. This camp is way different. Every player is being worked on. The training level is high,” she said. 

On what lies for Indian rugby after Asian Games, she said, “We worked hard for our medals, qualified for Asian Games. Our aim is to win the medal and give our 100 per cent. We would implement all we have learnt so far on the field. Hopefully, we get a medal.”