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Jocelyn Barrieau: How passion, pride, and love shaped the Canada coach
To celebrate International Women’s Day, RugbyPass are sharing a series of exclusive interviews with the six female head coaches on the HSBC SVNS Series, the first with Canada’s Jocelyn Barrieau. Women currently make up 25% of head coaching roles across all 24 teams involved in the Series, with even fewer leading 15s teams, and all of their unique stories must be honoured.
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Following Canada’s silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and a home WXV 1 for the 15s team, Barrieau took her place as head coach of the women’s sevens team – something she tells RugbyPass is ‘the biggest honour, in terms of my coaching life, that I will ever have’.
She joined a significant movement of women to top coaching jobs on the HSBC SVNS Series, seeing the number of female head coaches rise from one in the 2023/24 season, to six – meaning that 50% of the women’s teams are now coached by women.
Formerly Canada’s assistant coach before she took over from Jack Hanratty, Barrieau started her sevens coaching journey with the Stingers men’s team at Concordia University.
After first recognising her relative privilege, Barrieau profoundly shared what International Women’s Day signifies for her.
“Sometimes we don’t necessarily reflect on the fact that there are still a few inequalities and injustices in the world. I’m a white woman, so I have privilege, and there is still a lot going on in Canada where there’s still missing and murdered indigenous women, and it’s off the charts the amount of violence that’s happening there. There’s been a lot of intimate partner violence in Canada,” she emphasised.
“Those are the moments that you take and you reflect and say okay, there are still some inequalities in this world and while things are getting better, it’s important to reflect and talk about it, and to talk about being a woman and not just release it or diminish it. We must continue talking about it, especially with younger women.”
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Last year, the sole female head coach on the HSBC SVNS series, Emilie Bydwell, made history as the first woman to coach a team to an Olympic rugby medal when the USA took a stunning bronze against Australia in Paris.
In January, Great Britain Women’s Sevens coach Giselle Mather was a guest on The Good, The Scaz & The Rugby, where she discussed a quote from Bydwell about how care, connection, and empathy are often not valued as leadership qualities. The original quote came from a Premier Rugby Sevens interview, which featured Bydwell and Barrieau alongside each other, with the USA coach discussing the strength of their shared qualities.
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Barrieau’s core values as a coach align similarly with those three components, and they have in fact shaped who she is as a leader and a person.
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“I talk about passion, pride, and love – passion, fierté, et amour in French. Those are my three pillars and they’ve been in place for almost 10 years. I look at them every year and assess whether I’m living my life by those.
“They’re different, and I know that the way that I set up environments and leadership within those uses those three pillars all the time. I ask myself, are we being passionate about what we’re doing? Passionate doesn’t mean yelling it from the rooftops, but are we fully invested in what we’re doing? Are we proud of who we are?
“That element of pride comes from me being open and out with my partner, married to my wife, and now having a family and being super proud of that. Also being super proud of where I’m from and the languages I speak, because in Canada there are different languages. I’m always proud of where I’m from,” the Québécois coach said.
The third pillar, love – amour – was derived from Argentina’s men’s team at the 2007 Rugby World Cup, Barrieau recalls. In the competition, Los Pumas reached the semi-finals for the first time, and would eventually finish third, their best-ever placing to this day.
“I was in a coaching conference and I saw this video of their locker room and they had this white flip chart,” she begins, before recounting the absence of social media at the time and sharing a laugh while wondering how the footage was shared in the first place.
“In the middle of this poster, it had the word love. I took that moment, and said to myself, ‘If that team can be loving, have standards, and perform well, then any team I coach can do that if I’m led by love and caring about these players I coach’.
“Ever since, that’s been a central tenet of everything I’ve done. I want to show loving leadership for the staff and players I lead and the organisation I’m in. Life is short – and that’s the way I want to be in it.”
Those pillars occupy Barrieau’s approach to leading any team – be that men’s or women’s – and while she points out the difference in the way the genders process things, she underlines, above all, the desire for care shared between all players.
“Both genders that I’ve coached are similar and I have very similar relationships with those players. I want to be a coach that goes to their weddings and holds their babies, and I get to be in their lives for a really long time,” she said with pride.
“There’s a player named Michael Laplaine-Pereira who just debuted on the Challenger Series for the Canadian men’s team, who I got to coach at Concordia. That was a cool full-circle moment to be coaching the Canadian women’s team, but also watching the first guy that I coached to get onto that programme. They all want to be challenged, they want standards, they want boundaries, and they always want to know that they’re cared for.”
While not every woman in sport has the same positive experience, with the majority of high-level coaching positions in rugby currently held by men, Barrieau’s journey, in many areas, has been underpinned by the support of male allies.
“Male allyship means everything to me. I know that the men in my life and firstly, their own security, and how they feel about themselves, their work, and their coaching, is super important,” she stressed.
“I can say Jack Hanratty and Kévin [Rouet], have always made space for me, and not just token space – giving me the whistle space.
“Last year, there were very few women on the Series, namely with Emilie as USA head coach, and assistant coaches of Emilee [Barton] with Australia and María [Ribera] with Spain, as well as myself on every second tour with Canada as we two had two assistant coaches and rotated.
“You’d look around and think – there aren’t many women in this environment. To then have it completely flip within a year is pretty special. Decisionmakers have seen the value of women and become great allies.
“My provincial union [Quebec] has always supported me and now Rugby Canada fully support me in my development. The allyship is huge and it takes secure and confident men to say ‘Maybe we can see this another way’ and ‘maybe Joce has value to add to this conversation, let’s make sure she’s on these calls’. Male allyship is pretty wonderful – and above all, it’s crucial.”
The allyship of secure men around her has fostered Barrieau’s career so far, with many having a large impact, which she underlines when we move on to discuss her coaching role models.
“There have been a lot of male allies who have made a lot of space for me, starting from the first sevens job I ever had, which was with the University of Concordia. Clive Gibson asked if I wanted to coach the men’s sevens team.
“Clive was somebody who was amazing to me. Kévin [Rouet] and I have gotten to grow so much together in the last over 10 years working together as competitors and through our province.
“I’ve had a lot of support from Francois Ratier, now the head coach at Bordeaux, who’s also made a lot of space for me. He was involved with Rugby Quebec for a long time and said ‘Come, coach, this programme is all yours, run with it’. He was very supportive of me starting a sevens programme in our province.
“For me, the male allyship is a big part of it. There were a few women who were coaches at the time, but there were things that I saw that I thought if I get the chance, I might do this a little bit differently. That’s where the love part came in. I wanted to embrace any opportunity I had.
“The first sevens coach that initiated the programme was Natascha Wesch, and Suzanne Chaulk, two early Canadian female coaches who got our sevens programme going. They are two pioneers in the women’s game who helped get us off the ground and have also influenced my career.”
An additional level to the women’s game is the way that inclusivity fortifies the sport, which, in Barrieau’s opinion, makes rugby the perfect facilitator for sparking conversations surrounding International Women’s Day.
“I think rugby is the best sport on the planet because of its inclusivity, particularly in the women’s game. We have players who come to this game who often need the game more than the game needs them,” she affirms.
“At that time, you just need this game so much because it helps you, it guides you, it keeps you stable, it gives you a great community, it gives you physical activity, and a chance to express yourself. The game is so special. Now I’m going to get all philosophical,” she says before pausing to reflect on her own history with rugby.
“I can say the women’s game for me has been a place where I’ve always been able to be myself. I’ve been able to confidently be in same-sex relationships, it’s where I met my partner, it’s where I found people who are like me. The networks you create, it’s so inclusive. I believe rugby is perfect for International Women’s Day for those reasons.”
In the same vein, the Canada Women’s Sevens head coach also took the opportunity to look further afield and sing the praises of those striving to move the women’s game forward.
“I’ll give England and the Red Roses credit where it’s due – they’ve definitely started something special with that team and that programme that a lot of countries are looking to emulate. While they don’t do a lot of crossover with their sevens, they have an identity for their team, they have a great focus on their team, and I respect what they do. We still want to beat them [she laughs] but we definitely respect what they’re doing too.”
In January, Montréaler Barrieau was invited to read the starting lineup for her home team, Montreal Victoire, in their Professional Women’s Hockey League fixture against Toronto Sceptres at Rogers Arena (Vancouver, BC).
In videos shared on social media, an impassioned Barrieau speaks to the team before the game, which they won 4-2, and shares with the team how the existence of their team and the PWHL make her want to ‘dream bigger’, with a personal anecdote about her friend’s daughter now being a season ticket holder.
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“I thought when she was younger that she’s never going to know anybody, she’s never going to cheer for a [women’s] team, she’s always going to watch these guys, and she plays the main Canadian sport, yet she’s never going to have a female role model to look up to, except for at the Olympics every four years.
“I’m very fortunate to know someone who tried to start these hockey leagues years ago, Liz [Lisa-Marie Breton-Lebreux], she was our strength and conditioning coach at Concordia. I saw her the other day and I said ‘This [the success of PWHL] was the dream, right?’, and she said ‘Yeah, this was the dream, this is what we were trying to get 20 years ago but it wasn’t the right time’.
“In that amount of time, to think that we could have a professional women’s rugby league where players are paid, not just a living wage, a decent wage – I know currently different countries have different wages that come into it.
“I watch the PWR, I listen to the podcasts, including The Good, The Scaz, and The Rugby, and Rugby Rodeo, I’m looking forward to Canadian player Gabby Senft starting her own soon. There is this market for people who want to hear women’s voices in sport.
“I don’t even know what to dream because I don’t know how big to dream! I don’t know if the PWHL founders dreamt this big. This past weekend, there were 17,000 people in a stadium to watch a women’s hockey game. Did they dream that big? I don’t even know.
“To be fully professional sevens players, to have sponsorships and opportunities would be the ultimate for rugby. To have Canada’s teams be fully appreciated year round, every four years we’re loved so much [Olympics], but to have a year-round following with that kind of passion would be awesome too.”
From speaking about that moment meant to her, we go on to discuss just how important women showing up for each other is – in rugby, in sport, and in life.
““That hockey experience, and to be connected to my city in a different province, was extremely special. I won’t forget that any time soon. It’s so easy to see women doing incredible things, and supporting each other is pretty huge. I come from a University [Concordia] here in Montreal where our teams all go and watch one another, our coaches send little messages every time we come to a game.
“Our hockey coach was nominated for the coach of the year again within our province, and I’ll text her all the time even if I don’t work at Concordia anymore. First of all, you never know when somebody needs it, and also it just makes the world a better place.
“It’s imperative that women support women. Within the rugby community, some of us are a little bit closer. I have been very fortunate to know Emilie [Bydwell] now for a long time. Having a friend on the circuit is really nice, and I got to spend some time with Crystal [Kaua] from Brazil when we were together in Perth, we sat down and had a meal and got to chat about life, that was really cool.
“I didn’t know Giselle [Mather] either so it was nice to get to chat with her this season. It’s so key to be able to support one another. We’re all still very much competitive – don’t get me wrong, but not to the point where it taints our ability to be supporters of one another. That relationship is important.
“To see Emilie before a game and shake hands, to see Emilie after a game and shake hands, no matter what, and to talk about our lives and our partners, and now we’ll talk about our kids, and be able to share that kind of stuff is awesome,” new mother Barrieau, who welcomed her first child with partner Hughanna Gaw two days before HSBC SVNS Vancouver, said with a smile.
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As women’s sport continues to gain well-deserved traction, Barrieau’s message to maintain growth is simple – ‘put it on the air, give us the opportunity to watch it.’
Using the example of the 17,000 fans in the PWHL, she underlined the fact that sport is sport, and that crowd was not made up of solely women – but a meld of women, men, girls, and boys.
“If we don’t have access and we stop putting women on TV, then those stereotypes come back – those people questioning ‘Oh, can women even play rugby?’, those start of things start to come back and then we don’t move forward.
“The exposure that we’re getting from different organisations, from the likes of RugbyPass TV, last weekend I had two screens on – both on two different things. I’m watching the Challenger Series on one screen and I’m watching the Gloucester-Hartpury vs Bristol Bears on the other. I hope StoneX is sold out for the final in two weeks, there are people cheering for the women’s game because they have access to it. If we have access, people will love to cheer for it
“Put women’s sports on TV, create social media for them, create content for them – show their skill, show them playing the game, not just them off the field, and you’ll get great returns.”
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