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The Coaching Journal Podcast #346: Fuelling for the Demands of Rugby Sevens with Ellie Saunders

In this episode, I’m joined by .saundersnutrition — a performance nutritionist with extensive experience in professional sport. Ellie is the former Head of Nutrition at Burnley Football Club and previously worked as Club Performance Nutritionist at Al Nasr SC, leading the Men’s First Team.

Ellie brings a practical, athlete-first approach to nutrition in high-performance environments, with a strong focus on travel, tournament preparation, and repeat-effort performance.

Together, we break down a complete fuelling roadmap for Rugby Sevens — from why Sevens nutrition is fundamentally different to 15s, to how players should fuel across multi-game tournament days. We cover international travel and hydration strategies, taper week nutrition, carbohydrate loading, match-day fueling, on-field nutrition, and the critical recovery window from Day 1 to Day 2.

This episode is designed to give Sevens athletes and coaches a realistic, practical framework to fuel performance when it matters most.

Listen on Spotify or link in Bio 📲