Victoria Grant: A women's rugby coach on the rise

Rotoiti women's rugby coach Victoria Grant in her element, giving her players a team talk. Photo / Ben Fraser

Since hanging up her boots as a rugby player, Rotorua's Victoria Grant has thrown herself head-first into coaching.

A superb player in her own right, the former Black Ferns captain has long been a fierce promoter of the women's game and in recent times has taken her coaching to another level.

She coaches the Rotoiti women's premier side and last year she coached the Bay of Plenty sevens team to a Plate final win at nationals.

She went to Japan as the assistant coach of a Black Ferns Development team last year, where they played in a four-team mini tournament featuring the Japan women's sevens squad with two sides and the Hong Kong women's team.

She is the current coach of the New Zealand under-18 Sevens team who won the Oceania Rugby Under-18 Sevens Championship in Sydney last month, qualifying them for the Youth Olympics in Argentina in October.

Grant also had a valuable opportunity to develop her coaching skills at this year's Commonwealth Games where she was immersed in the Black Ferns Sevens squad on a Commonwealth Games Federation scholarship, which she was nominated for by New Zealand Rugby.

"It was awesome, it was pretty exciting that [New Zealand Rugby] wanted to put some energy into helping my coaching develop.

"Every day during the games we had different workshops and speakers as part of the course and it also involved me being fully involved with our national side. I was with the girls when we had the mumps in our camp and we were quarantined for a while, so I actually missed some of the course.

"But just being part of the team and the culture with the girls was priceless. They are so resilient and really focused on the task at hand. Adversity makes that team stronger, they went through quite a lot but it made them stronger."

Grant said she learned "heaps" from the experience.

"Seeing their culture in full swing and being immersed in that, that showed me how they do the simple things really well, that's the key thing I took out of it. They keep things simple but do it really well, on and off the field. That's what we learnt on the coaching course too, keep it simple but know what you want and where you want to go."

Grant said the under-18 side she took to the Oceania Championships was "really exciting" and showed how much the women's game had grown.

"We have some really talented girls, this group is the girls they'll be looking at for future Olympics. It's exciting that they have pathways now, especially the under-18 age group. It's really great that New Zealand Rugby have put funds into creating these pathways.

"There was none of that when I was playing, this is the first year they've had an age group women's sevens team. It's taken a while, but it's pretty exciting for the girls. The culture at under-18 level is really strong too, which I think has a lot to do with the amount of work coaches put in at secondary school level."

Grant said the aspect of coaching she loved most was helping to give people opportunities to play.

"I'm passionate about the game, I love the game, everything about the game. Rugby is a sport anyone can play, tall, short, strong or fast - I love that.

"I also love developing girls, helping girls reach their full potential. That is why I coach."