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A year ago, John Tait’s squad were standing above all others, having won the Sydney 7s.

Now, it’s a forgotten thing for his women’s rugby sevens squad.

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“That was several competitions ago,” he said Wednesday as his team prepared for this weekend’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series event, which also features a men’s event.

“Everyone, including ourselves, has evolved their games and we need to really focus forward on executing our play to achieve that result again.”

The key to last year’s victory was tenacious defence, especially in the semi-final when the Canadians contained the powerful Australians on their home turf. They went on to win the title with a narrow win over the Americans in the final, another built on stout defence.

“It takes 12 people to win that and that’s exactly what we did,” captain Ghislaine Landry told reporters after taking the title.