By Grace Ryan
Women’s rugby union star and Narromine local Rebecca Smyth proves you can have it all rejoining the Wallaroos for their World Cup plight after giving birth to her two children.
The team came third in the last World Cup and are hoping to come home with the title this year.
For Rebecca, this World Cup is special because she’s had to work extra hard to get there.
“It’s different from when I was younger, to come back after having two kids is a lot harder,” she said.
The flanker is one of four mums on the team.
“It is hard. But I also think it makes life with the kids better because you make the most of your time with them,” she said.
Although her children, aged one and three, joined Rebecca on her last tour to New Zealand with the team, she said France was probably a bit too far this year.
Rebecca has been training hard having lost a lot of weight during her pregnancies, which isn’t a good thing for the flanker.
“I’ve lost a lot of weight so I’ve been eating well to keep up my weight if not to put some more on,” she said.
“I like to (eat healthy) but chocolate is a big vice.”
Rebecca trains locally to get herself in shape for the World Cup.
“It’s a lot of individual training. I do six days of weights and running. I also train the junior Gorillas,” she said.
This is Rebecca’s third World Cup and seventh international tour. She said she has played with the team before and thinks they’ve learned a lot from previous World Cups.
“While the result was disappointing (last year), we’ll take a bunch of stuff away from it, leaving us in good stead for this year,” she said.
Rebecca’s head coach, Paul Verrell said the preparation had been good with the Tri-Nations tour earlier this month.
“Although we didn’t get the results we wanted, from a coaching perspective we now know exactly what we need to target and have adjusted our training programs accordingly,” Mr Verell said.
The Wallaroos will meet at the Sydney Academy of Sport on July 21 for a seven-day camp to finalise their preparations for the World Cup.
They will play in Pool C alongside Wales, South Africa and France.