{"id":21212,"date":"2018-07-26T14:29:50","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T18:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21212"},"modified":"2018-08-01T16:51:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T20:51:31","slug":"apps-debuts-on-rugby-sevens-world-cup-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/apps-debuts-on-rugby-sevens-world-cup-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Apps debuts on rugby sevens World Cup stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

An up-and-coming force on the world rugby stage, Olivia Apps traded in the blue, black, and white of the Aurora Barbarians for the red and white of Team Canada in her national debut at the Rugby World Sevens in January.
\nApps, now a student at Queen\u2019s University, was one of nine rookie players on the Canadian squad in San Francisco, California last week for the Rugby World Cup, where their inexperience showed in a seventh-place finish.
\nA strong opening 43 \u2013 19 win over Brazil in the Round of 16 had the Canadians off to a good start, though a loss to France in game two knocked the women out of the championship bracket.
\nAfter falling 26 \u2013 14 to Spain in the fifth-place semifinal, Canada closed out the tournament with a strong 22 \u2013 10 win over Russia to land in seventh place.
\nRanked third in the world overall, this year\u2019s incarnation of the tournament came with a brand new format, including a single-game knockout formula that ultimately proved fatal for the Canadians.
\nDespite the disappointing finish, Apps and the rest of the Canadians will need to get back on the horse for the USA Sevens in Glendale, Colorado, scheduled in just a few months\u2019 time.
\n\u201cOlivia is a tenacious young player,\u201d said John Tait, Head Coach of Team Canada. \u201cShe still has a lot of development in her, but we want to give her a taste of the world level.\u201d
\nEarning her first cap at just nineteen years of age, the young Apps size does not match up with many of her teammates and opponents, standing at five-foot-five. Yet the former Barb credits the sevens program, one built for speed with less players on the field, with her success.
\n\u201cI guess I don\u2019t really fit the image of a classic rugby player, but in sevens you need players of all sizes,\u201d said Apps. \u201cA lot of my teammates are stronger and bigger, and they carry those strengths\u2026but for me, I may carry other strengths as in speed and agility.\u201d
\nApps compared the practice of sizing up other players to that of kids in a cafeteria.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s definitely intimidating, but at the end of the day it\u2019s just about how you perform, not how they perform.\u201d
\nNew Zealand retained the championship on Sunday for the second tournament in a row.
\nThe Canadian men, meanwhile, closed out the tournament in twelfth place after a final game loss to Wales, and being ousted by Argentina in the Round of 16. The New Zealand All-Blacks also won the men\u2019s side. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An up-and-coming force on the world rugby stage, Olivia Apps traded in the blue, black, and white of the Aurora Barbarians for the red and white of Team Canada in her national debut at the Rugby World Sevens in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/2018-07-26-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5w8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 11:04:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}