Growing up playing touch football, a limited-contact sport, Charlotte Caslick never imagined by the age of 21 she’d be playing Rugby for Australia, putting her body on the line daily.

Caslick rose through the ranks quickly, but said her confidence with heavy contact didn’t come immediately.

“I struggled with the contact side of things in the beginning,”

“It took me a good 12-months to get over that concept of having to tackle someone who was running at me.”
“I was very passive with my tackling, I used to be a dead weight and fall at other peoples feet and hope they’d fall over the top of me,”

Hours of practice with team mate Alicia Quirk and Caslick said she began to acclimatise to the imperative element.

“I think I finally realised that if you run harder at them, you’ll come out on top,”

“Once I nailed that aspect of the game, I guess the transition from being a bench player to the main starting seven, went really quick.”

Hear more from Charlotte on our podcast ‘Gold Coast Gold’ – with Dave Culbert

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