No shortage of heart on rugby pitch

TWO AND A HALF years ago, Jenny Matheson was afraid she might never play rugby again.

Now the native Haligonian nicknamed Shorty is standing tall on pitches in the Middle East, getting battered and bruised, and revelling in every moment on the field.

"I love the sport," Matheson, who plays for two seven-a-side women’s teams in the United Arab Emirates, said in a recent email interview. "I love the aggression, and the dynamics of all the different players that make up a rugby team."

The 27-year-old teacher, who grew up in north-end Halifax, got her start in rugby at Halifax West High. Also involved in several other sports, she was named female athlete of the year in 2000 as a senior, then went on to St. Francis Xavier University.

It was at the Antigonish school that teammates affectionately dubbed her Shorty. At four-foot-10 and about 120 pounds, it’s a moniker she comes by naturally.

But her size hasn’t deterred the diminutive scrum half.

Mike Cavanagh, coach of the St. F.X. women’s rugby squad since 1999-2000, remembers Matheson as a quiet leader who loved the game and played it with a no-nonsense attitude. "When you look at her, you wouldn’t think she was a rugby player, but she was tough and she’s very athletic," Cavanagh recalled in a recent interview.

"For a small person, she played with a big heart and she never took a step backwards. She took a pounding sometimes but she always got back up."

One of her bounce-backs wasn’t quite so routine, though.

Matheson moved to England in 2006 to teach science and physical education in south London. After travelling to the U.K. four years earlier with St. F.X. to play a set of exhibition games, she was anxious to be a part of the rugby subculture there and caught on with a Division 1 women’s club.

But early in her first season with Rosslyn Park, she broke her collarbone in several places and required reconstructive surgery, including a bone graft and the insertion of a metal plate and a half-dozen pins.

"I was out of commission for six months and had some thoughts that it would be difficult to play again," Matheson said, recalling her fears that the injury might spell the end of her days on the rugby field.

Not surprisingly, the bulldog mentality that served her so well on the pitch led her back to it. After an extensive rehabilitation and training program, she was back in action the following summer.

"Rugby became too important for me to miss out on," she said. "I was too young to quit just yet."

Now she’s teaching phys-ed at the American International School in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the Emirates, and starring with two teams, the Abu Dhabi Harlequins of the Gulf women’s league and the Arabian Gulf squad, a national team of sorts made up of the top players from the Gulf region.

Matheson has played scrum half — she likens the position to quarterback in football or point guard in basketball — for most of her career on traditional 15-a-side teams and now with her new seven-a-side clubs.

She’s still usually the smallest player on the field, but the sevens format is well-suited to her abilities, her former coach at St. F.X. says..

"There’s a lot more space on the field for her speed and her quickness," Cavanagh said. "It is definitely for your better athletes — you gotta be super fit, you gotta be super fast and you have to be able to read the game very quickly, and Jenny can do all that."

The Harlequins were recently crowned league champions, dominating five playoff opponents by an aggregate score of 146-0. Matheson’s other squad, the Arabian Gulf team, played its first international tournament last month in Hong Kong, finishing third in its pool and losing 14-12 to Papua New Guinea in the game to decide fifth place.

She’s gotten used to playing in the balmy Middle East. The club season runs from October to April, which Matheson refers to as the region’s "cooler months," when temperatures range from 25 to 30 C.

"When I first came in September, one hour of training felt like five hours of training back home because it was still about 35 degrees at 7 p.m.," she said.

Matheson will be home again this summer. She has played with the Halifax Tars in a women’s summer league since 2003 and looks forward to the return to her hometown.

But after enduring the sweltering heat of the United Arab Emirates, she figures her system is in for a shock.

"I’ll probably be freezing when I get home."

Courtesy BRIAN FREEMAN Sports Reporter, The Chronicle Herald