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Mexican women getting a full dose

The Mexican women are the 16th seeded squad and probably the most inexperienced group of players in either competition. They simply haven’t been exposed to this stage.

That’s what their coach, Robin MacDowell, said he’s focused on. Gaining experience and learning from what facing big teams like New Zealand and England bring.

“I don’t know if we have any takeaways from that game,” he said of the half-century shut out loss to England in the challenge trophy quarters.

“We did against New Zealand,” he added, pointing to the fact his team kept New Zealand to just two scores in the game’s opening four minutes.

“The biggest thing is experience, the only way to get that is to be here.”

His message for his players will be simple, one about looking to control the pace of the game as much as they can.

“Get the ball, keep the ball, score the try,” he said. “We can compete with teams at this level for three to four minutes…but once we start to roll the subs, we have kids just 18, 19.”

“This is the most relaxed I’ve ever been as a coach,” he went on. “If we do something right we do it again, if do something poorly, we fix it.”

This tournament is a full dose and it will be most useful for the team’s real target, which comes in just under two weeks’ time.

“Ultimately what we’ve targeted this year — we’ve been excited about the RWC — is the Central American Games,” he explained. “We won a bronze four years ago, we’re targeting gold this time.

“This experience, we can build on it.”

There’s a smattering of Mexican fans in the crowd and MacDowell said they could hear all of them.

“They’re the most passionate exciting crowd,” he said. “There’s about 100 of them who have travelled up and many of the families who billeted us (over the last weeks) in Canada, they’ve come too.”

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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