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SANDPIT tackling and scrummaging with a boxing bag against a wall, all in the punishing heat of a Middle Eastern air base.
Welcome to the training regimen of Captain Caroline Vakalahi, a movements officer in the Australian Defence Force and prop for the Australian women's rugby team.
Vakalahi will on Sunday line up for the Wallaroos against their arch-rivals New Zealand in Rotorua, as part of a pre-World Cup tournament also featuring Canada.
The 31-year-old is among the Wallaroos' most experienced players and few come tougher, which is no surprise given Vakalahi's day job is fighting for Australia.
The Queenslander, who has been a member of the Australian Army for seven years, has only just returned from an eight-month deployment at Al Minhad air base, in the UAE.
Vakalahi is a movements officer, responsible for logistics of moving "people and cargo and equipment in and out of the Middle East area, on to ships, or into Afghanistan, and moving them back home."
She flies into Afghanistan for routine meetings and once did a deployment in Kabul as a watchkeeper.
"As the role states, you are keeping watch of what's going on in the battle space, and you report it back to your hierarchy," Vakalahi explains.
It is an exciting and fulfilling career, says Vakalahi, but not one which always lends itself to running around on her other passion: green rugby fields.
Captain Caroline Vakalah is one of four ADF representatives in the Wallaroos. Source: News Corp Australia
The prop, who played for the Wallaroos in the 2010 World Cup, has had to come up with innovative ways to keep fit and scrum-ready while overseas.
"We have access to gyms, and the camp that I was on had a sandpit, a sportsfield-sized sandpit, where I could do conditioning training," Vakalahi said.
"I also had a friend from the Navy over there and we were able to do tackling training as well."
Surely a movements officer could "accidentally" order a scrum-machine to the middle-east?
"Ha I wish," Vakalahi laughs.
"I was trying my hardest. Basically I used a boxing bag and I put it up against the side of the wall. That's how I would practice my body shapes and scrum packing. You have to deal with what you've got."
Comparing war to sport is folly but Vakalahi says comparisons with army life and rugby teams can be legitimately made; and the links are strong between the two.
Captain Caroline is one of four ADF representatives in the Wallaroos, alongside Alisha Hewett, Mollie Gray and Hayley Sullivan
"In the army, you build camaraderie with people through your training and you learn how to adjust and adapt to other people. And moving into the rugby circle, it is exactly the same thing," she said.
"You have the shy ones, and the overt ones, but at the end of the day it's your ability to build relationships that matters and brings it all together. You have to trust that someone has got your back."
The Wallaroos play Canada on Friday in their second tour match as part of preparations for the World Cup, which kicks off in Paris in August.
The Australians are confident they can improve on their third-placed finish in the 2010 tournament, despite 15 new faces in their 26-women squad.
"We are not going in shy and timid," says Vakalahi.
"We understand it's a challenge but we are determined to give it a bloody good crack."
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