Samantha Teo (Singapore Women’s 7s) – Rugby Opens Up Doors

Samantha Teo is an experienced national rugby player in the Singapore Women’s Sevens team and was part of the 2024 SEA 7s team that ended up runners-up in the Singapore Rugby Festival 2024. We talked about her rugby journey, the importance of Singapore hosting international rugby and breaking down barriers for women’s rugby.

Photo Credit: SRU – Women’s 7s team SEA 7s Runners-up 2024 (Sam Teo centre front row)

“I’ve been playing for about 14-15 years, and I started just after Junior College when I was about 19 years old. If you do the math, you figure out how old I am,” Sam said laughing.

Sam was involved with the Singapore team at the 2024 SEA 7s which ultimately reached the final and lost to Thailand in the Singapore National Stadium over the Singapore SVNS weekend.

The matches took place at the start of May 2024 a couple of weeks after the squad had crossed the border to play some preparation matches in Malaysia and had some tough results – but they do have a young squad.

Sam said, “We went to Malaysia to play against them and it was our first international tour this season in 2024. Leading up to that we had a couple of weeks of training, and a block of training for about six weeks prior to that of on-field sessions, conditioning & gym.”

The Singapore women’s team went to Malaysia with the intention of competing in three games before the weather prematurely ended things and Sam commented, “I think it was a really good experience for us. Because in this team and the squad this year, we actually have quite a number of new faces. So that’s great for women’s rugby in Singapore.

It shows that there’s development coming through and I hope that there will be more new players coming in because that will only signify the growth of the sport in Singapore, and especially for women’s rugby.”

Sam is part of B.A.C Rugby club and she had several teammates join her in the national setup. “I think we have maybe 7-8 in the SEA 7s squad and I think they’re all pretty stoked to be representing Singapore,” added Sam.

Of the pool matches played at the 2024 SEA7s, Sam was pretty happy overall; “We did pretty well, I guess. We stuck to our structure and the way we want to play, which is to play wide. And the team really worked hard to help each other and back each other up on the field.”

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Sam Teo’s Rugby Roots In Singapore

Sam Teo – B.A.C Rugby Club (Singapore)

On how Sam got involved in rugby, she told us, ”I tried rugby when I was about 18-19 years old and actually just followed my coach back then to join a club, and then a few years ago we decided to strike out on our own and created a women’s rugby club in Singapore (B.A.C Rugby).

In addition to being a long-term member of the national setup, Sam Teo is also Co-Chair of the Singapore Rugby Union Women’s Development Committee.

“We were quite certain that we wanted to empower some women in leadership positions. We want to empower our girls who are coming up in rugby to understand what it takes to run a club, what it takes to coach a club.

So there are quite a few pathways that we have for our players – either you become a team manager if you’re unfortunately injured, and If you enjoy coaching, there are some coaching opportunities that we have. Some of our retired players have actually moved on to refereeing.”

She pointed out that at the SEA 7s 2024 and during the weekend of the Singapore SVNS, a former teammate Adeline Chew was an Assistant Referee and made her debut as an international referee in the 5th/6th place final between Laos and the Philippines womens SEA 7s match.

Rugby Opens Up Doors

After describing all of the pathways in the sport, we asked Sam if there were cultural obstacles to girls and women playing the sport – and what about rugby attracted her to the game.

“I think I enjoy the physicality of it. That adrenaline rush when you make a good tackle, or you have a good line break, right? If someone tries to stop you, but you manage to pump your legs, pump your arms and breakthrough that tackle.

I think the second biggest thing for me is the camaraderie, the camaraderie with my teammates. They are one of the reasons why I’m still here playing after so long. Some of them have retired and they’re not playing, they’re either refereeing or they’re coaching. But I still enjoy the game. I still enjoy meeting the younger girls and trying to understand their lingo a little bit!

I also enjoy trying to keep up to date with the game, because from where I started about X number of years ago, the game has evolved so much. Sevens Rugby has changed so much and it’s become faster – a lot faster. It’s a lot more enjoyable to watch and I think that’s just exciting for me just to keep learning as a player,” Sam told us.

With all of these opportunities in rugby – how do you handle parents who worry about their children getting injured or stigmatised when there are so many doors rugby can open for them?

“I think it’s just that perspective that some parents might have about it being a contact sport. They think the goal should not be playing contact sports, or going to the gym to look strong, or be strong on the field. There are a lot of body-positive images that are not really inclined towards playing the game, which I suppose they would call a ‘rough sport’.

It really strikes me that boys are allowed to play. And because boys can do it, girls cannot. So that’s one thing that I think we need to break, is that stereotype in Singapore. Children are children. You can ignore gender – everyone should be allowed to play the sport that they like to play, and not be confined because it’s a gender-specific sport,” said Sam.

Singapore Rugby Festival Week 2024

Post-pandemic, all unions in the region are trying to rebuild and put the sport back on the map; there are more competitions and the focus at the moment seems to be on Sevens rugby. We asked Sam how important she thought it was for Singapore to be able to host the Singapore SVNS and to have all these community events and national team events in the buildup.

Sam elaborated, “I think it’s really important, and congratulations to Singapore for hosting one of the SVNS legs. This gives a lot of access to people to understand the sport and to actually even understand rugby, because I don’t think maybe half the people in Singapore, maybe three-quarters of the people, have any idea about what rugby is.

They have no contact or access to it and have maybe never seen it before, or have not heard of it. Rugby is also limited to a certain number of schools in Singapore, unlike netball or soccer where you have a team school team in every school. Rugby is confined to certain schools or certain areas in Singapore.”

Photo Credit: Singapore SVNS – USA player Perry Baker with Lao Rugby Federation players – Singapore SVNS 2024

The Singapore national team player added. “I think having the opportunity for people to walk to the National Stadium and realise there’s an event going on and to see rugby, that they can come in and enjoy it and even if they don’t understand the sport, they can enjoy it because it’s so thrilling. With Sevens, everyone has an equal opportunity to win the game and that makes it super exciting.

That engagement in the sport is unique too, we witnessed it all week and the way the role models behaved and engaged with fans.

“It is phenomenal. I think it’s really exciting because this is the first edition for Singapore SVNS to actually have the women’s teams be included, and it’s a full week of being a festival.

So having young kids, young boys and girls looking up to role models, I think that’s great. Being able to connect with them and not feel that they are too far away – they are so approachable. It lets those stars remain humble and always connect with the wider community in this sport.”

Singapore Rugby 7s Future – ARSS 2024

Looking ahead to the Asia Rugby Sevens Series 2024 (ARSS) which Singapore will be involved in, Sam said, “This is just the start of our Sevens season, so in a few weeks we have our domestic Sevens with two legs of club sevens.

For the national 7s Singapore team, we want to stay up in the top ARSS but we also need to not think too far ahead, and take it one step at a time. We do have a goal, and that is to remain in ARSS – we need to take care of the process, and the outcome will take care of itself. It’s just focusing on the basics, focusing on the techniques, focusing on little things.”

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