When Caitlyn Halse was a child – which, for Australia’s teenage full-back phenom, was not that long ago – her father had a certain motivational trick to get her to practice her passing. Perhaps recognising the burgeoning talent that has established the now-18-year-old as one of rugby’s brightest young stars, a set of rugby posts had already been erected in the Halse backyard to hone her kicking but the refinement of a second skill required a more rudimentary solution.
“When I was young, my dad used to make me go outside and he’d draw a person out of chalk on the wall,” Halse recalls, bouncing with her trademark energy in a week in which the Wallaroos take on England’s dominant Red Roses. “I used to throw hundreds of balls on each side at it. I was trying to get better at my skills every day.”
