The Wallaroos have suffered a huge blow on the eve of Rugby World Cup with Olympic gold medallist Charlotte Caslick ruled out due to injury.<\/p>\n
The Australia squad will depart for the tournament in England on Monday afternoon without Caslick as the sevens star fell short in a race against time to be fit after sustaining an ankle injury while playing against New Zealand last month.<\/p>\n
Caslick was included in the Wallaroos\u2019 32-player squad<\/a> named last week with the expectation that she would miss the opening pool game against Samoa on 23 August but aim to be available for the crunch clash with the US a week later.<\/p>\n The three-time Olympian and rugby sevens gold medallist shifted her full-time focus to the 15-a-side game with the dream of playing at a World Cup but will remain in Australia to continue her rehabilitation after surgery on the syndesmosis injury in mid-July.<\/p>\n The 30-year-old has been replaced by uncapped centre Manu\u2019a Moleka who joins her sister Faitala in the Wallaroos squad, though Caslick can hold out hope to be recalled as a reinforcement later in the tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really disappointed to lose Charlotte so close to the World Cup,\u201d Australia coach Jo Yapp said. \u201cShe has shown great commitment to the XVs program and Wallaroos this year.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlotte\u2019s timeline to get back for our pool matches has changed and following medical advice, the decision was made to allow her to continue on an accelerated recovery program, where she could be available as an injury replacement should we require a player later in the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n Allow Instagram content?<\/p>\n This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Caslick turned her focus to the Wallaroos earlier this year and made her international debut against Fiji<\/a> before going on to play five Tests as she loomed as a wildcard for Australia at the World Cup.<\/p>\n The sevens convert has been trialled in a variety of roles with the Wallaroos but was beginning to make an impact in the centres before suffering the ankle injury in the dying stages against the Black Ferns<\/a>.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Caslick said last week that she felt a sense of satisfaction that she had been named in the World Cup squad after making the switch of rugby codes, though she will return to the sevens program later this year with one eye on a fourth Olympics at LA 2028.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been a great challenge for me,\u201d Caslick told Guardian Australia last week about her experiences with the Wallaroos. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me in ways that I didn\u2019t think, at 30, I was still wanting to do.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been great to be part of a new group and learning from different coaches. I kind of just felt like I was a student of the game again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wallaroos have suffered a huge blow on the eve of Rugby World Cup with Olympic gold medallist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-334908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115008405843725322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}