Crouch, touch ... engage | Calling all female athletes looking to tackle a new challenge

Remember the Madonna movie Desperately Seeking Susan? Well, we at the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union are currently seeking Susan or Jane, Abi or Agnes, or any other young lady who is interested in trying out for the Hong Kong national women’s sevens programme.

If I was composing a recruitment ad it would probably say something along the lines of “No previous rugby experience required”, though that would of course be an advantage.

Our hope is to find talented women who have previously demonstrated their sporting prowess in other disciplines – in other words crossover athletes who might help to augment our existing rugby development pathway.

This is hardly a radical approach. The USA women’s sevens squad currently contains three Olympians – from ice hockey, a bobsleigh and football – and closer to home our own flying winger Aggie Poon Pak-yan was previously a Hong Kong national sprinter.

Track stars have often made impressive rugby players, stretching right back to Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman”, who played seven times on the wing for Scotland as well as winning the 1924 Olympic 400 metres gold medal – a story that was immortalised in the film Chariots of Fire.

In more recent years former British 110 metres hurdler Nigel Walker went on to represent Wales at rugby, and of course former US college sprint star Carlin Isles is currently tearing up the HSBC Sevens World Series where he is billed as “the fastest man in the game”.

While not as common, there have been well-known crossover players from other completely unrelated sports – Jeff Wilson famously represented New Zealand at both rugby and cricket, a feat mirrored in Hong Kong a few years back by the multi-talented Stewart Brew.