María Ribera: Hard working SVNS coach shaping Spain in her image

By her own admission María Ribera made the most of her playing career through sheer determination and hard work.

Ribera’s dedication earned her recognition with Spain at Test and World Series level, taking her to two Rugby World Cups in both sevens and 15s and helping her become an Olympian.

That industry has continued to permeate her work as a coach and underpins her endeavour to turn around Spain’s fortunes in HSBC SVNS. Or as she describes it, to help Las Leonas Sevens “become great again”.

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“I wasn’t the best performer,” Ribera tells RugbyPass. “I was a hard worker in the team and that allowed me to be there for eight years and [go to] the Olympics.

“That is the spirit I want for my players.”

Ribera’s first SVNS season in sole charge has been a tough one. An inexperienced squad – four of the 13 players selected for last month’s trip to Vancouver were 20 or younger – has struggled for form.

Spain have finished no higher than 11th in the four tournaments so far and currently sit bottom of the overall standings, 19 points adrift of the top eight and assured of their place in the relegation play-off in Los Angeles in May.

Ribera has also been restricted when it comes to calling up players who have set their sights on representing Spain at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 in England later this year. Still, she has faith in those coming through and is fully confident brighter days lie ahead.

“It’s going as we’d expected because this year was going to be hard for us [when] the World Cup is on in the same year.

“The Spanish union wants to invest in the World Cup too, so it’s been hard to speak all the time with the 15s head coach (Juan González Marruecos) to decide which players go to one place and another place. And, at the same moment, we decided to bring new players into the programme,” Ribera explains.

“It’s a new team, a big challenge and really young players. So, we are where we expected but we are going to be better and better each tournament.

“I really think that this is the first step that we needed to become great again, because we had a really bad performance the last four years. So, it’s going to be hard, but it has to be like this.”

Ribera uses Spain’s men’s team, currently second in their SVNS standings, as inspiration but as she alluded to, her time as Las Leonas Sevens head coach has been fraught with challenges.

Having joined the coaching staff in the wake of their failure to qualify for the 2024 Olympics, Ribera admits the mood in camp was on the floor when she arrived.

Spain’s journey towards Paris had been brought to a shuddering and unexpected halt, thanks to a shock 17-12 defeat to Czechia in the quarter-finals of the 2023 European Games.

The timing of the team’s exit in Krakow meant they did not even have a place in the repechage to cling to. A generation of players who had planned to bow out on sport’s grandest stage were suddenly bereft.

“We arrived in September (2023), so it was really late. We almost couldn’t change the players or do anything, only work with the team that didn’t qualify for the Olympics,” she says.

“The big challenge was to keep [the project] together and believe that we can compete and enjoy rugby again together. So, that was a really big challenge because the mentality and everything was really, really bad.

“So, that was really hard, but we did it and now it’s like a new era and a new project.”

During that first SVNS campaign, Ribera worked alongside Alberto Socías, who shouldered some of the responsibility to help her transition into the role and ensure the mistakes of the past were not repeated.

“Being together gave me more confidence to do what I wanted because the players trusted him as a head coach… [and] we were both thinking the same,” Ribera adds.

“I really think that helped me a lot to build the team that I wanted this year, when I’m alone. Maybe without him, without another person giving the same message to the players, it would have been really hard because we were coming from a really bad situation.”

Help and advice has also come from the other coaches on the circuit, especially her five fellow female programme leads.

“The environment is more warm,” Ribera says. “It’s like, OK, you’re as good a coach as the other woman, and it will push me to be a better coach.

“We really wish the other [women] the best and there is not a big competition between us. For me, the only problem is the language!”

Ribera admits finding life on the sidelines harder than being a player but says “every tournament, every month, every year, I’m growing as a coach”.

And she believes her playing experience can only help her as she attempts to steer the squad towards SVNS safety for another year.

“I know how they feel. I’ve known frustration, to not be selected for a really great tournament at an important moment in my career,” she says.

“I know how important free time is for players and how important it is that the timetable is not busy all the time.”

For all the job’s challenges, Ribera has enjoyed some high points too; not least their home tournament in Madrid last year and the 22-0 victory against South Africa that retained their place on the World Series.

“To play at home was incredible, and how the players played the last match against South Africa was awesome,” Ribera says.

“They deserved to have that experience because their life and their experience over the last two years has been really hard for them. They deserved to finish like that because they believed, they wanted it, and they did it.

“I only share the weight with them, but they did a really good job. Even though we changed the players, we have to recognise that they did it and they gave the chance to the new players to be in the World Series.

“Obviously, we helped but the most important in the programme are the players, not the coaches, and that is always my vision. We are only [here] to help them achieve their goals.”

The immediate goal for Spain, and Ribera, is SVNS safety but taking encouragement from the Irish and Canadian women’s programmes, as well as her country’s men, she believes bigger dreams await.

“This generation has the most potential that we have ever had. They only need time,” she insists.

“I haven’t seen players with that motivation, I haven’t seen the healthy competition that they have between them. They serve and then they push each other.

“I really think we need only to give them time, physically, because they are 17 years old, 18 and they haven’t been in the gym in their life. But I think this is the programme and the generation that has the most potential.

“We really believe in them.”