Touch put Torley on the road to Birmingham 2022

Lauren Torley has credited Touch for giving her the skills, fitness and all-round rugby ability to put her on the road to representing Team England at the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

Torley has been named in the Team England Rugby Sevens squad that will face Canada, Sri Lanka and New Zealand in the pool stages at Coventry Stadium, with the winners and runners-up progressing to the semi-finals.

She is no stranger to international oval ball sports, having been selected in the England Mixed Open squad for the 2021 Autumn Series and the England Lionesses team which competed in the 2019 European Touch Challenge Trophy in Spain.

And now she follows the footsteps of plenty of Australians by turning her Touch experience to becoming a fully fledged Rugby Sevens international, having earned her spurs in the World Rugby Sevens Series in Canada at the end of April.

“I have always played sport to a high level and when I left school, I was keen to try something else out for a few months before I went on my travels during my gap year,” she told Talking Rugby Union.

“I joined up with the Thames Valley Vikings Touch team in Reading and that was a great decision for me. They were such a welcoming group of people and it was really fun and I fell in love with Touch almost immediately.

“I learnt so much in a short space of time. I loved the fact that in Touch you have to be really technical and also because it is so fast-paced, it doesn’t really matter what your physicality is or whether you are male or female as you can play together.

“As a result, I was able to develop my skills and my passing pretty quickly because in each training session and match, I was coming up against different types of defenders.

“I liked that challenge and at all times when I wasn’t on my travels during that year, I was playing Touch at the peak sometimes four nights a week. I just loved it!”

Everyone at England Touch wishes Lauren and her Team England team mates the very best for next weekend’s Commonwealth Games, which you can watch live across the BBC.

CLICK HERE to read the full interview.

Pic (c) Team England