Corey Toole (rugby 7s) made his Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham in 2022 after a meteoric rise – just a year earlier he was playing local rugby with the Gungahlin Eagles when some impressive performances caught the eye of the national selectors.

Toole played his junior rugby growing up in Wagga Wagga where he attended Mater Dei College before joining the ACT Brumbies’ Junior Academy in Canberra when he was 18.

Toole was called in to the Australian training squad in November 2021, quickly offered a contract, and made his sevens’ debut in the opening tournament of the 2021/22 World Rugby Sevens Series in Dubai. The electric winger quickly made his mark: he finished the series as Australia’s leading try-scorer (43 tries) and second-highest points-scorer (215 points), helping Australia to victory for the first time. He took up a contract with the ACT Brumbies in 2023.

Corey was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was just five years old and had treatment for a year before being given the all-clear when he was 10.