Co-captain Isabella Nasser is not only excited to get back on the park, but also to lock down her position as the new arrivals, plus stars from the Wallaroos, push their claims to participate.
The Tim Walsh-coached side comes into the series opener with arguably one of the strongest sides the program has ever assembled, with key stars returning from injury in Madison Ashby and Kaitlin Shave.
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They will combine with the talented new class of players from last year, with Nasser singling out the likes of Amahli Hala as a player to watch.
Then, there is the imposing contingent of Wallaroos who also look to press a case in the Australia A side, with Maya Stewart and Waiaria Ellis spearheading the side, while Tia Hinds also makes her return after a successful stint in her first year in XVs.
“It's really cool to have those girls in the experience that the younger girls had last season,” Nasser said to Rugby.com.au.
“The girls coming in to us from the Wallaroos, Maya, 'Baba', Desi [Miller] was in the other day, even Tia coming back from XVs has provided so much insight and knowledge and learnings from their game and that translates over to us.
“I think it strengthens both sports, women's rugby at Rugby Australia. It's healthy competition, and it's really good.”
The added pressure and competition for positions have come at a time when the Women’s side looks to snap a three-year title losing streak to New Zealand, with the women in gold finishing the last three years as runners-up.
They will get the perfect opportunity in Dubai, though Nasser believes the competition has been the bigger driver than the pressure to go six-in-a-row.
“We go into every tournament process based, we go to every tournament to win,” the co-captain added.
“We hold ourselves at a really high standard, but whatever will happen will be. There's always a process behind being Welshie, it's just something that everyone just sort of gets out straight away and be like, alright, we can't control this, let's just focus on our game.
“We love Dubai, we love the heat, we love how fast the games are. If I'm completely honest, we haven't really mentioned it too much, the six-peat.
“I think our culture is really good to be able to support each other, but also compete against each other and push each other to be better, which ultimately will make our team better.”
For Nasser, the new look of the schedule comes with many changes, such as ticking a city off her bucket list with a trip to New York, as well as the new Championship format.
The star will be very happy to welcome back Madison Ashby as co-captain, further adding to an impressive leadership group for the side.
“Madi Ashby was the captain in Singapore when she unfortunately did her injury, so I was obviously very honoured to take over post the Paris Olympics,” Nasser said.
“I always had hope that she would be appointed co-captain one day alongside me, so I feel really honoured and proud to have her by my side and captaining this amazing team.
“In her own way, she was in the leadership group, so it was very easy to lean on her and go to her for advice, as well as Charlotte [Caslick] and Demi [Hayes], as well, so I was definitely surrounded by lots of incredible leaders.
“[On New York], it's on my bucket list, so it's pretty incredible that we're able to travel there for work and play a tournament in New York, it's pretty amazing.
“You've got to be on your game for the whole three World Championships. If you sort of bail out on one of them, you've got an opportunity to come back.
“But in the environment that the Sevens is in, the competitiveness of all the teams, it's pretty hard to sort of switch off and then try and fight back in there.
“We'll see how we go.”
