Lin during the 2019 WPL season (Photo: Jackie Finlan / TRB)
The USA Women’s National Team (WNT) converged on Glendale, Colo., committing to an eight-week Daily Training Environment (DTE) and additional mini-camps. The assembly culminated on Nov. 18 with what was supposed to the first of two intra-squad 15s matches, but two positive Covid-19 cases necessitated a shutdown. It was an abrupt end to the experiment – one that tested whether a national team assembly could occur safely – and for Shelby Lin, it was an opportunity worth repeating.
RELATED: Kirshe Relishes USA 7s & 15s Ops • DTE & Mini-camp Attendees (USAR)
“Yes,” Lin confirmed that she’d do the DTE all over again. “I know that’s a controversial statement, especially how things ended, but it was actually really great, if not impressively great, to do the eight weeks with regular testing and have no problems. [The game] was the next step in the progression – which was a slightly bigger group, bringing in some people – which ran into problems. So I think if we’re not allowed to go anywhere in the spring, at the very least, I think this is a model that worked reasonably well. The players have to agree to take the risk, and the players have to agree to abide by the rules and stuff, but I think if players want to do it, I would be there.”
Lin was already working remotely when the DTE presented itself, thus making the relocation to Colorado a real possibility. However, the Berkeley All Blues scrumhalf had just started a new position with Verily Life Sciences. Fortunately, the strategy associate had a manager and a schedule with some flexibility, and Lin was able to take advantage of a big opportunity without a big financial sacrifice.
Lin during the 2019 WPL season (Photo: Jackie Finlan / TRB)
“Sometimes it was stressful … and that was just the burden of that privilege of being able to work,” said Lin, who said some, not most, players were able to work remotely. “Sometimes, especially toward the end as things got more intense around the games, it was, ‘I’d love to have this half day of down time,’ but I’d have to get some work done. … [I]t means you have to be very careful about putting your energy and focus really strategically on what really matters at that point.”
Prior to reporting to Glendale in September, Lin was passing to a goal post as Covid-19 limited her training options. A DTE teammate was only squatting as much as they could hang clean for lack of a rack. So for Lin, the work-rugby trade-off was worth it. She got good exposure to the national team staff and quality minutes with the Eagle player pool, as well as regular access to a gym and the opportunity to actually play a game.
“[The staff] were very deliberate and tried really hard and did a good job at having staged progression for the camp, mostly around Covid safety,” Lin said of safety precautions. “In the beginning the groups were really small, there was no contact and only things with masks. And only toward the very end, the groups got a little bigger and you were able to do slightly more unit stuff. But at the very end around the games, then it was more like a normal camp where every day was on and there were a lot more meetings and things all squished together because you only had everyone with their teams for a week or something before playing. At that point, the last two weeks, it was hard to also work, but that’s more how a normal camp would have been.”
Lin during the 2019 WPL season (Photo: Jackie Finlan / TRB)
The DTE campers were separated into four groups that prioritized players’ living situations and positions. That made for pods of 10 players or fewer, and while they might have seen each other from across the pitch, arriving or leaving a training session, they didn’t interact in person for the majority of the residency period.
“We had enough to run two back lines – maybe they weren’t your dream back lines – but you had flyhalves in each group and centers and stuff,” Lin said. “But it was definitely a big transition at the very end when you add in forwards. … We hadn’t been working on interplay between forwards and backs, or playing off any real set piece because we didn’t have people to run that.”
It was a lot of skill work in the smaller groups, and thus players had the opportunity to really develop as opposed to showing up and immediately performing.
Lin during the 2019 WPL season (Photo: Jackie Finlan / TRB)
“It was very fun and I think more care-free in a sense than a normal USA training environment, just because it was so long and [groups were] so small,” Lin said. “Each of the groups I think created their own culture. Our group was very tight socially and stuff, which meant we had a lot of fun at training. … We got really close. That was nice because typically I’d expect to come into these environments with a large group of 30-40 people and everything goes really fast. And now you got to really know the people in your small group, which was really nice. And obviously it also means that you didn’t get to meet maybe some of the people in a different group, but [the DTE] was still different in a good way.”
Lin appreciated the variety of personalities in the Stars’ backs, which ranged from Jetta Owens, the Virginia Tech senior who was experiencing her first senior long camp; to fellow scrumhalf Olivia Ortiz.
“That was very fun for us because we became really good friends, and I was living with her and her dog,” Lin said of Ortiz. “It’s almost like your club environment, where you’re living with really good friends and the people you play with, and we’re not usually that lucky to have that on the national level. So it was really nice, especially with someone like Liv. You might expect us to be really competitive and I think there’s a little bit of that, maybe in training, but it’s in a good way. We push each other and really support each other. That’s nice and not something I necessarily had before this experience at that level.”
Four DTE groups also meant that the staff were putting in much longer days.
“It was very tiring for them. A few of them at the end of the day … ,” Lin laughed with sympathy. “We would just feel really bad and a lot of players were bringing them snacks and stuff because they would have been out there on the field for like six hours in a row to do four sessions – and that’s only if we had one-a-days, and we often had two-a-days. So you can just imagine, they’re out there literally all day, sometimes in the cold – a great time!”
The Stars vs. Stripes match arrived on Nov. 18. Lin described the normal set of excitement and nerves that comes with game day, which is amplified at the national level and a live-stream.
“But we hadn’t actually played rugby, for real, since – some people were lucky enough to play at the end of [2019 but] I hadn’t played rugby all of 2020,” Lin said of a unique anxiety. “So there was definitely some nervousness of, ‘Do we even remember how to do this?’ But also it’s very fun to play your teammates because you are also excited to see how you match up against whoever, or you have a sense of what they’re going to do and being able to plan for that. It is kind of fun and competitive in a way that is healthy.”
RELATED: Stripes Defeat Stars 34-12
Lin took the field for the Stripes midway through the second half and went to shoulder-to-shoulder with the Stars’ back-up scrumhalf, Ortiz. Both brought a fast, sniping edge to the game.
“No, it gives you a more well defined goal, depending on how the game is going of course,” Lin addressed whether subbing into a game, as a scrumhalf, is a tough ask. “If you’re winning, maybe it’s game management. If what you need is a spark or something, it’s trying to bring specifically energy. Some mental parts of it, if anything, are easier because the game is already in flow and it’s pretty well defined what you need to do or what you’re trying to do. … I was happy to try and do that, despite how it worked out score line wise.”
Lin during the 2019 WPL season (Photo: Jackie Finlan / TRB)
The Stripes ultimately pulled away for a 34-12 win. Even though the second match was canceled due to Covid-19 cases, Lin felt the Nov. 18 match provided valuable intel in terms of lessons and work-ons. She was pleased with everyone’s enthusiasm and intensity, even though those highlights might have been expected given the year’s restrictions.
“I think we saw some new people in different ways of playing than maybe we’ve seen before,” Lin said. “We had some really good kicking, for example, that I think was pretty cool. I feel disappointed. It’s hard to judge a single outing after so long of not playing. So that’s another sad part about not being able to play that second game: not being able to see how we could have adjusted.”
Lin played for approximately 20 minutes and likely would have received more minutes in the second match. The cancelation of the Nov. 21 rematch occurred in the span of 24 hours, Lin estimated.
“It happened pretty quickly, from the first message of, ‘Can everyone stay in their rooms? We’re dealing with an irregularity,’ to the ultimate decision,” Lin said. “It was pretty fast but it felt slow in the sense that it’s very different mentally. ‘Keep yourself prepared for playing a game the next day,’ versus, ‘Time to go home.’ So it was a little bit stressful, but they recognized that and tried to make that decision as fast as possible.
“It was an anti-climatic ending emotionally but everything was pretty clear regarding what was going to happen next once the game was called off,” she added.
Lin spoke to exit protocols and that USA Rugby also helped players who were uncomfortable traveling to stay in Colorado. Team calls, game film and individual follow-ups have punctuated this week, and that feedback will help orient players for 2021.
“I don’t think we know exactly what’s up for the spring,” said Lin, who indicated a calendar of events circulated a couple of months ago but needs to be updated for ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. “For me, mentally, I’m really happy I went to Denver, especially being able to go the whole time. I was able to work and play more rugby and form these really good relationships, and get excited about hopefully being a part of that [in the future].”
For now, it’s back to the park in Oakland and that lonely goal post that has missed Lin’s tight spiral of a scrumhalf pass. On to 2021!