Russia ready for Rio charge

Nadezda Kudinova is one of the most recognisable faces on the Russian women’s sevens side.

Small in stature but big in heart, the scrum-half and captain is the gel that holds the team together, and at just 23 she’s become invaluable as much for her leadership skills as her ability to turn a game on its head with an outside break.

The responsibility of captaincy weights easily on her shoulders.

“Because I play scrum half and lead our defence from the back, in many ways I have always been involved in leading the team and I hoped that one day I would be captain. Nothing has really changed, I am just officially captain now!”

Going into Amsterdam this weekend Kudinova knows her side still have an outside chance of taking an automatic Olympic spot but they will probably have to make another final – a feat made more difficult by injuries to key players and the decision that Kudinova herself will be rested ahead of the European Series – where Russia has the first leg in Kazan. It is almost as if head coach Pavel Baranovsky has accepted that their fate lies in the tricky two-legged European Series, or potentially the final reparcharge next summer.

For her part, Kudinova is not overly happy with the season her side has had on the World Series.

“When we look at our overall year so far I think we are more disappointed than pleased  because we do not have the game yet that we really want to have, that we know we can have. “

“We are missing some of the technical skills of other sides above us and we need to be more aggressive in how we defend. That is a big challenge for us to match how the top sides are doing it.

“We have the ability to improve within our group. Every player that is in the team needs to think about their own mistakes and work on that. Our players have huge potential and I think they can go really far, but all of us need to cut out the small mistakes so first of all we need to find more from ourselves as individuals.”

Once Amsterdam is out of the way this weekend, Kudinova will return to Russia to preare for the Europeans and then play with her club in the Russian Championships. After that is some much needed rest time for the recently-married young star and she is hopeful that the game will continue to grow.

“In general more girls are playing in Russia and more people know about it. We get more coverage than we did some years ago though it is still not a lot.

“The Olympics does give it more attention from the government and so on, but on the other hand we have people now who are really passionate about women’s rugby. There are a group of retired players now who are still involved and they are trying to get involved in coaching and attracting new players and all of that is helping.”

She smiles when her ebulliant head coach “Pasha” is brought up and laughs when we ask what his passionate style of motivation is like to deal with.

“He is ok! We understand his emotion and how much he cares about the result.  Pavel wants our team to do their best and when we make small silly errors we undestand why he is loud! He is very encouraging and very specific in his half time talks to us and it is effective.”

This year’s World Series she adds was a big step up in quality and she pays particular tribute to Canada, who she adds did a superb job on their leg.

“We loved the stage in Canada because there were lots of fans and lots of Russian speakers there too! That was a surprise but great. The result was good for us but the whole thing was a good experience. A lot of former players were there too and were really great to speak to. People on the streets approached us about rugby and that was something memorable.”

She is coy when asked who her favoutite players are in the game – saying she doesn’t focus on players outside of her own side but smiles when asked who her favourite team to play against is.

“South Africa”