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When the staff of the Madagascar women's rugby sevens team changed three months ago, the players quickly realised that hard work lay ahead. But then came a major coaching change and the preparation for Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022 in Cape Town suddenly became the focus. "What's changed is that we've introduced a lot of discipline; discipline is what we were lacking a bit. We taught the players humility, hard work, and a sense of sacrifice to  rwc 7s live reach their goals. No sacrifice, no results.” Behind these words is Zaka Ravelonanosy, the team's strength coach and assistant coach, and a former soldier of 19 years. In the new staff, there is also a former policeman. The staff demanded a focused effort from the team. "But they understood why," says Ravelonanosy today, smiling. Everything was leading up to the Rugby Africa Women's Sevens tournament in April in Jemmal, Tunisia, a qualifier for Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022 in South Africa. In addition to Tunisia, eight other teams took part in the tournament: Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Zambia and South Africa.

There was a lot of excitement, but also a lot of pressure because qualifying for a World Cup is a big deal," recalls Ravelonanosy. "Deep down we knew we had a chance, but we weren't going to shout it from the rooftops! We put the players under pressure and tried to keep them that way so they would have maximum confidence. We kept telling them that they were playing for the honour of the country, that qualifying would be historic. But that all the rwc 7s live stream  other teams had the potential to qualify too.” The staff ramped up the training schedule, with training now taking place four times per week. There was one main objective: to win and qualify for Cape Town. In Pool C, the Ladies Makis beat Ghana (29-5), then Tunisia (7-5) and finally Zambia (14-10) in the quarter-finals. Everything would be decided in the semi-final against Uganda. Madagascar opened the scoring after two minutes but Uganda took advantage of a yellow card to seize the momentum and take the lead through a converted try, resulting in a 7-5 lead at the break.