Canada Column: Gabby Senft, the 'Rugby Nomad' ahead of Pacific Four

In the first edition of our Canada Column series, Gabby Senft takes RugbyPass readers inside the world number two team as they prepare for the Pacific Four Series and Rugby World Cup 2025 later this year. 

For me, coming into training camp with Canada doesn’t feel like I’m leaving to go somewhere unusual; it’s more the opposite. It really does feel like coming home, it’s my happy place.

I’ve been in the squad a while, my first cap was in 2018, but I was on the development team since 2015, so it’s been the longest team I’ve ever been a part of. It’s cool and crazy at the same time to say that my international team has been the team I’ve played on for the longest.

Having played rugby in four different countries, in 15s, sevens, and league, I’ve been given the persona of a rugby nomad. These experiences have allowed me to become knowledgeable about different styles of rugby, countries, and cultures, which has given me a unique outlook on not only rugby but life as well. Taking this experience, I’ve also launched the Rugby Nomad podcast.

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

I consider myself one of the oldies in the current squad, and have now played alongside every girl at this camp, be that for university teams, club teams, 15s, sevens, u20s… the list goes on.

These girls are more than just teammates, they’re like family. This is the same for many of the team staff as well. Our physio was my first physio at university, so I’ve known her for 12 years, and I consider her one of my good friends.

With our current situation of not being contracted players, the family environment in camp really does help to make all of the sacrifices worthwhile. We do it all because we love playing rugby, and we love being around these people.

The longest I get to go home to Saskatchewan is maybe a week, I didn’t even get to go home for Christmas. It’s tough at times, but whenever I’m with the Canada team, it feels like I’m returning to my comfort place.

I’m not sure many international players could say that about their team camps. It’s a high-performance environment, and it can be stressful, but what we’ve created is really strong. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve been on the senior team since 2018, and it’s definitely taken some time to get to this point.

 

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We had a meeting the other night, and we expressed our feelings and emotions towards the contract situation. Of course, we want to be contracted, and we want more. When I look back on when I started, though, I’m only 27 now, but I had to pay to play. Hopefully, when I’ve retired, the younger players in the squad now will get what we always wanted – and for me, that’s cool, to see the progression.

It’s cool to see the young generation getting the opportunities that I have gone across the globe to see and for the years of working incredibly hard to finally be a professional women’s rugby player and for one day to hope to have a professional league in Canada.

I’m not mad about where we’re at right now, I want to be the best rugby player I can be, and it would definitely help being contracted, but that’s why I’ve chosen to play overseas to improve myself.

For me, personal goals and aspirations also go beyond rugby. I want to finish my undergraduate degree. I’ve got one class left because I left halfway through to play in Australia; I’m also on the waitlist for helicopter school to get my license. The bigger picture of rugby isn’t just about being a rugby player for the rest of your life, because that can’t happen.

I’m doing a double major in Environmental Studies and Visual Arts, and I’ve got my Visual Arts class left. I did sculpture and photography, and I’ve got to present a whole gallery of everything summarising what I studied, but I’ve got to do it in person, having done my other courses online. Wanting to finish my undergraduate holds extra significance as I recently found out I’m Métis, Aboriginal Canadian.

My grandma hid it because of a lot of trauma, there’s still a lot of digging to do with my heritage, and a lot of things about who I am now make sense to me. It would be pretty cool to get that undergrad with that in mind, my grandma didn’t even finish school, and I’d be the first to achieve that from that side of my family.

 

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While that remains a goal of mine, I’m also committed to representing my country at the highest level, and we have a big few months coming up.

We’re currently at the Chula Vista Olympic Training Centre as we prepare for the Pacific Four Series. In our first few days here, we’ve already had intrasquad training with the USA and Japan.

We’re already putting ourselves on the front foot by seeing what’s working and what’s not against other international squads. Sometimes, when you’re just training within your own squad, it’s not always easy to see where your weaknesses are because you’re playing against one style that you’re used to.

It’s the first time we’ve ever done that many intrasquad sessions in one camp, and I’d say this has been the best camp going into Pac 4, or even any tournament, that we’ve had.

We’ve also had the Canada sevens girls join us here, which adds to our One Squad approach. We’ll combine training with the sevens and 15s teams, with them also preparing for the HSBC SVNS World Championship.

We’re seeing a lot more teams integrate their sevens and 15s teams now, which I’d largely attribute to what Kévin Rouet’s influence has been with what he’s been doing with Canada – he’s shaped a big part of women’s rugby, not just Canadian rugby.

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On our first day here, we got rid of the cobwebs with some skills and gym sessions, as a lot of us have just finished a break after our club season, or mid-season for the girls who play in France. After that, we were straight into business the next day against the USA.

There was a lot of information to take on to ensure we’re all on the same page, and that the new girls were aligned with everything. We’ve also done some team bonding activities to make sure that we get that connection back right away, not that it’s that hard for us with all being so close anyway.

I’m currently rooming with some of my closest friends. Anaïs Holly, who was my original roommate before she retired – she’s now back for more, as well as Julia Schell, whom I played u20s with back in 2015, and Claire Gallagher.

We’re considered the old girls now! I’m finding it really fun because it’s three backs and one forward, I don’t get to spend a lot of time with them, so it’s my one moment to hang out with the backs. We have four individual rooms connected with a living area and kitchenette, and our dorm always has the snack table ready!

When we’re in camp, we all like to do different things with our off time, but we’re very big on card games in this team. We even have group chats organising where we’re going to play and things like that. Kévin, our head coach, is very good at cards – he wins every time, it’s very annoying! He always claims to be too busy to play, but says he’d just beat us anyway.

We even had these team shirts made to celebrate a coaching milestone for him. It says ‘I’m the f***ing queen’ because we have a terminology in our team that in our forward pack, the first person is the queen. He’ll say things like ‘Move, I’m the f***ing queen’, and it’s become a whole thing, so we made the shirts because he’s the queen of our team.

This is the first time we’ve all been together since WXV. We’re always trying to build. This is the most consistent our team has been for a very long time, if anything, ever, where we’ve been top three in the world for a good few years now.

Canada begin their Pacific Four Series title defence against the USA on 2 May at CPKC Stadium, Kansas City. Watch live and for FREE on RugbyPass TV.