‘The vibe is really cool’ – Abbie Brown on Lightning, GB Sevens, and jumping between the two
When she’s not captaining her nation to Olympic qualification, Abbie Brown is providing Loughborough Lightning with a last line of defence at fullback. There is, perhaps, no player who better balances the twin pressures of playing in the PWR and running out regularly for GB Sevens, so I caught up with her ahead of the league season kicking off to find out how she, and her team, were doing.
“The vibe going on at the moment at Loughborough is really cool,” Brown told me when we caught up just before the start of the PWR season. “We’ve got a new head coach in Nathan Smith, and he’s been real good for the girls. I think he’s really tested the girls in a different way.
“It’s definitely been an interesting time [through pre-season and the Allianz Cup] but it’s super cool seeing the rugby ability there is in such a young group. I’ve kind of been a little bit around it with doing a bit of skills training with them. Doing my own running alongside training, I’ve been dipping in and out as much as possible and trying to get involved as and when I can. It’s a really good group which always helps.”
Part of the new vibe at Lightning is down to a fresh voice at the top. Former Director of Rugby Rhys Edwards, whose focus was always firmly on Loughborough’s ability to develop and nurture players, has moved on to a new role with Pentathlon GB. Nathan Smith has stepped in and immediately changed the perspective. This is now a club that, while it is mindful of the importance of developing for the future, also wants the best possible outcome today.
“I think it’s always different when you have a new coach come in and they have their own perspective on things, you get fresh eyes on something that you’ve been looking at in the same way for the last couple of years, and that means they can bring a different opinion.
“It tests you and challenges you as a player. We’re kind of going through the same situation with GB Sevens. It just challenges you as a player to come at things from a different angle and then you’re like ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Let’s try that. Let’s experiment with this. Let’s see where we can go with it!’ If you get buy-in with the players then you’re pretty much there, aren’t you? It’s exciting times. I’m really looking forward to seeing where we go with this season considering how well we’ve done in the cup. How can we go forward with a super exciting season ahead of us!”
Loughborough stumbled out of the gates in the opening weekend of the season with a loss away at Saracens and then a bye week, but this weekend saw them show some of what Brown alluded to as they made the short trip to Leicester and won handily against the Tigers.
For Brown though a trip to Largs and some unseasonable Scottish sun was followed by trips to Malaga and, most recently, Dubai.
“It’s been really fun getting back into sevens fitness, sevens contact, all those different things. The training weeks have been really heavy, the guys have tested us! We had two really heavy days almost replicating game days. So we’d go out to the pitch, have an intense session, take an hour break and then back into another heavy session. Stop for lunch and then into the gym in the evening. We did that back-to-back. It was tough on the body but also so good to be back and we had a couple of new faces, which was really exciting.”
With Meg Jones stepping away from sevens for the immediate future to focus on getting more Red Roses caps Brown has also taken on all the captaincy duties that the duo previously shared. Of course, Jones may opt to return in the summer as the team have qualified for the Olympics. Now all eyes are on Paris and every training session or game in the lead-up is an opportunity to sharpen tactics, try new ideas and work on combinations.
Having the 2024 Olympics just a short train ride or flight from home means the prospect of a louder-than-usual support base for the team, something Brown sees as a definite positive. “It’s almost like a home from home, Paris is so close that hopefully we’ll get a lot of home support going out there or even just being able to watch it at a reasonable hour. So much of the time we’re halfway across the world and our games are on at 3 am, so it being so much easier for people to follow will be great”.
For now, though, it’s jumping back and forth between the intensity of sevens and the impact of 15s and Brown knows just how tough that can be. “For me, it’s all about the running. 15s is more of an endurance game, whereas sevens is all about repeatability. The running sessions we do are so hard but they’re over very quickly. Everything is built around time, so you run all out for a period of time and then rest for 45 seconds, get up and go again. It’s all game-specific.
“Obviously you don’t really experience that in 15s, it’s more stop-start. You break into units for focused training. You spend a lot more time on your feet and I really noticed that in pre-season…. My body felt really tired because I’m not used to being on my feet for so long.
“I’m used to working at a higher intensity but for much shorter periods of time. So it’s definitely different from a fitness point of view and the contact element is so different too. There’s so much more space so contact happens at a higher pace in sevens.
“You have to tackle differently too, because there’s so much opportunity for opponents to get around you. I’ve counted myself lucky to be able to do some skills coaching with Lightning and keep involved while doing my own running and fitness for sevens, because as much as the fitness and physical elements differ those skills are completely transferable. I’m not an individual athlete and don’t ever want to be, so to be around and join in with the girls has been really nice.”
Comments on RugbyPass
“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
1 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
3 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
3 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
3 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
4 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
4 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to comments