Ten years ago rugby was something that Natasha Olsen played simply because she enjoyed the sport, now she and her Brazilian team-mates are the first women’s team ever to qualify for a Rugby World Cup Sevens after their triumph in Punta del Este last weekend.
A fourth successive CONSUR Sevens title in Uruguay confirmed Brazil as South America’s leading female team and means that Olsen and her team-mates will now have the opportunity they crave, to test themselves against the world’s best teams in Dubai in 2009.
“It is something we never thought that this [qualification] would happen when we started to play rugby. We played because we like the game and we started to love it, so we were playing, playing, playing and then the first championship in South America came.
“We were really happy to have a national team, it was a dream come true to have a national team, and we went to Venezuela for the championship and we won it, then the second one, the third one and we were looking for bigger challenges and I think Dubai will be an opportunity to measure ourselves because we don’t really know how good we are.
“We only saw women playing on television a year ago when the World Cup started to be on the net and so that is the first time we saw people from New Zealand play and now we are going to play against them and it’s a big chance to see what we are made of.
Chance for Brazil to shine
“It is a dream coming true really, I am starting to think about it now. We were just thinking about getting here and getting our place in Dubai. Now we have this place, so we are going to do the best we can.”
Olsen admits that the desire to improve was initially fuelled by the women’s wish to gain respect and opportunities to play rugby and while coach Flavio Santos admits the development began to “prevent the girls getting injured”, he is now as excited as his players.
“We have now achieved the biggest goal that we could. I think it will be good for us in that we can measure our strength and our skills with other competitive teams. We now need to develop and work out a plan to get to Dubai and not just join the party,” Santos said.
“Being there is just going to be fantastic and outstanding. I think we are going to be great and really put in the effort to show everybody in the world that Brazilian people can and do play good rugby.”
Santos is convinced their qualification will be have a big impact on developing rugby in a football-mad Brazil, but he believes the sport achieving Olympic status would facilitate their growth even more and ensure this is not a one-off appearance on the world stage.
Something worth waiting for
“I think if we could be an Olympic sport the Government for sure is going to help us much more than it does these days and we know that depends on us, the IRB, the CONSUR region and all the world’s regions to put it in the Olympics,” added Santos.
“But I think this is going to be very, very big for us and for developing the game in the country, so with the leadership and growth helping every division to grow with us - the boys, the girls, starting to play with the young girls and young boys and trying to reach a World Cup with the boys too, why not?”
Brazilian rugby is on the rise, but that means a little compromise for Santos and his wife Emily Barker, an experienced member of the team, as he admits: “We were planning to start to grow the family, but I think it is going to need one [to wait] more year at least!”
However it is one you suspect neither will mind making to be a part of Brazil's historic debut on the Rugby World Cup Sevens stage.
