Cassie Staples has always been a late bloomer when it comes to her sporting career.
She didn’t start playing netball until she was 14, but ended up landing a semi-professional contract with Sutherland Shire. She didn’t pick up a football until she was 25, but six months later Rugby Australia handed her a contract with their sevens team.
Now, Staples is about to make her grand final debut with Cronulla, in a code she didn’t start playing until she was almost 30.
“I seem to do that to myself in my career so far,” Staples said. “Jumping across to things that are exciting and new probably entices me a bit.
“Growing up I just kind of picked up things late, and that was challenging in itself, but I was super dedicated. I was working at the time [when I ] was trying to crack Aussie sevens.
“I was passing the footy into my office chair, practicing my left and right passing during my lunch break, and I’d sneak out and go and train, and I was just doing everything I possibly could to pursue a career because I fell in love with the game. I fell in love with footy and fell in love with the culture, and just felt very welcomed by it, and knew there were opportunities to go to a World Cup, Commonwealth Games and then the Olympics as well.”
Sharks winger Cassie Staples. Credit: Edwina Pickles
Football first piqued Staples’ interest after the women’s rugby sevens team won gold at the Rio Olympics – a team that included current Cronulla teammates Emma Tonegato and Sharni Smale.
“In 2017, it was the year after the rugby sevens girls won gold in Rio at the 2016 Olympics, and there was a lot of traction off the back of that gold medal that those girls won,” Staples said. “I think they inspired a lot of girls in the country, young and older, to kind of pick up a footy or get involved in something that they love to do.
After some negotiating with her trainer, Justin Lang, Staples gave up her netball contract to go all-in with the football dream.
“We tested AFLW, we looked at NRLW, but it wasn’t much of a thing at the time, it was just kind of starting, and rugby sevens was really on the map at the time with the girls just off the back end of the success at the Olympics,” she said.
Cronulla winger Cassie Staples talks with a young fun at the NRL fan festival.Credit: Edwina Pickles
After five years with Rugby Australia, where Staples won a Commonwealth Games silver and two world series golds, she was picked up by the St George Illawarra Dragons before inking a two-year deal with the Sharks.
Now, she’s one of the team’s constants, playing every game for Cronulla this season, including scoring a try double in the round one win against the Cowboys.
“I played Harvey Norman [state competition] for Cronulla Sharks at the start of 2023, and had connections to the area, being local, had connections to [coach] Tony [Herman], and he offered me a contract for a two-year deal with the Sharks, and I didn’t hesitate for second.”
Now, Staples is 70 minutes away from adding an NRLW premiership ring to her Commonwealth Games medal, and she’s excited to embrace the pressure and intensity that comes with grand final day.
“I think pressure is a privilege, and I think we talk about it a lot as a group,” she said. “As I was growing up, and even in my younger years of being an athlete, I think I was always a bit scared of pressure. But as I’ve gotten older and had exposure a bit more, I think you can definitely feel it, but it’s something that I love to feel now.
“It’s nothing that I’m scared of, I know I’ve done the work, and I’m really excited to be a part of it.”
