The captain of the Nigeria’s Rugby Football League Women’s team, the Green Falcons, Blessing Aladeyelu, after leading the team to two wins against Ghana’s Leopardess, told New Telegraph’s CHARLES OGUNDIYA that the team is ready to take all opponents at the inaugural World Series. Excerpts…
The World Series is another opportunity to showcase your talent, how ready are you and your teammates?
We are 100% ready not only to showcase how good and ready we are, this gives us a platform to tell and show to the world that we play good rugby games in Africa too.
The team recently had two friendly games against Ghana. The first game ended 40-0 but the second one was kind of difficult, would you say that kind of opposition will help the team ahead of the World Series?
Personally, I think we were a bit relaxed probably because of our success in first game with good scoreline against Ghana, moving on we would be playing all our games like our lives depended on it. We will be able to look at the mistakes in the second game and this time, we will do the needful and take our games as the finals all together.
You also play Flag football for Nigeria and now rugby, can you compare the two sports?
Not really, I was already playing Rugby first before I got introduced to Flag football. Rugby is a contact game and Flag football is not contact game. But if you look at the two games, they have almost similar movement apart from the contact aspect.
Its obvious that you are versatile with several sports, tell us about your journey into sport?
I started my sport journey when I was in secondary school, Itolo Girls Junior and Senior Secondary School, Surulere, Lagos. I played handball for the school, football, table tennis, I made the relay team for the inter house sport as well. So, sport started from my secondary school and I have not looked back since then.
Looking at the energy involved in rugby, why did you decided to settle for it among all the sports you mentioned?
Growing up I love playing a lot mostly with boys and most of our plays were majorly contact (fighting) running, beating ourselves with slippers etc. When I was introduced to the sport (rugby) I saw myself doing all the same in a modern and good way so that was what drew my attention to the Rugby.
There was this expectation from people playing rugby, they are expected to be big and probably tall, but you have a petite body but still have your way around the sports. How do you manage that?
That’s where most people get it wrong. Rugby is not about your body size it’s all about your strength, how fit you are, how you can withstand pressure, and as well your agility cause in rugby pitch you see the smallest person taking down the biggest opponent yes so it’s not about the size.
What has been your parents’ reaction to your involvement in such a ‘dangerous’ sport?
At first My mom did not approve of me playing the sport because of the danger. She thought of the dangers in the sport and how people talk about it but now my mom is my number one fan and also my best cheerleader. She encourages me to train more now.
As a woman, what has been people’s acceptance of your choice of career?
Most times if I tell people I play Rugby they would be like “why not football” and I always tell them that I played football before and I chose Rugby over it and I feel more connected to Rugby than I was with football.
There was this news that you will be joining a club abroad after the World Series, can you describe how you came about the deal?
Yes, I will be joining Wakefield Trinity in UK. I got to know about them through Talentlocr, it’s an app where athletes have profile and we have many scouts around the globe checking it always to find players. It’s not an app for just rugby, it is for all spor.
What advice would you give to women who want to make money but aren’t ready to work hard?
I will advise them to try and work and have their own money because this pride comes with having your own money.
