Boks Dreaming of Sevens Glory

South Africa will have the experience of all
eight provincial women’s captains when they face the world’s best at the
Inaugural Women’s Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 in Dubai next month. One of those players is
Saloma Booysen, who has been captain of the Springbok Women’s Sevens squad for
the past three years, and has had the privilege of captaining the South Africa
to glory in the recent African Championships, beating fellow World Cup
qualifiers, Uganda.

Saloma, who hails from the Karoo,
told gsport she is really excited to be leading the team:

"I have come a long way with them and they are great to
work with. To have all the provincial captains in my team at the World Cup is
amazing. I feel privileged to have their support and knowledge to rely on."

Another plus is that Saloma is one of seven Eastern Cape players in
the squad and she believes that this will add strength, speed and unity to the
team, since they all understand each other really well, coming from the same
province.

 Saloma has
also expressed her delight that every member of the team is putting in their
best, saying the skill level is good, players are starting to understand the
structure better, and they’re working well with coach, Denver Wannies.

"We are
privileged to work with Denver Wannies. He has done amazing things with both
the men and women’s Emerging squad and we are learning a lot from him."

gsport
caught up with coach Denver Wannies to find out how he is feeling about the
team’s readiness for the Dubai
showpiece.

 
Denver, the last time
we spoke the ladies were off to a training camp, how did it go?

It went very well. We set ourselves some targets in terms
of things we wanted to achieve at that camp. I think we achieved all the
targets – one of them was to make sure that we gel as a team and we were able
to do that. The other was we wanted to cement areas of our play that we had
concerns about and we managed to do that very well. We also said that at that
camp we would finalize the squad, we did that as well. From that perspective,
the camp went very well.

Tell us about the
squad you’ve chosen for Dubai?

It is a 12-member squad with two players on standby should
anything happen.

Some of the other
teams are taking 10 players?

No we’ve always been working on a 12-member approach. The
reason why teams are only taking 10 players is because the organizers are only
covering a fixed number of people in a team and they’re probably not able to
cover for physio and conditioning coach that is normally not covered. South
African Rugby is able to pay for the extras
and that’s why we have a 12-member squad?

What remaining
preparations do you have for the team before you depart?

We are training this weekend again from the 12^th-15^th
– having a camp where we are applying a mini tournament set up where we are
bringing in three boys teams to play against. We are looking forward to playing
three games to get them ready for the tournament?

South Africa‘s Pool D includes Uganda, New
Zealand and Italy, what do you need to do to
progress?

We need to end on top or number two in that pool and that
is our target as a team. We are looking to end top of the pool to ensure we
make it to the quarterfinals and I think we are very much on par – and as a
team we are able to achieve that.

Remember the bulk of these girls played at the previous 15s
World Cup in Canada
where we did not do that well as a team. For them they know it’s going to be
tough, but they know what to expect and they know how to deal with it. The
advantage that we have as a team is that we are desperate to do well and
improve on the performance at the 15s World Cup.

The All Africa website has rated your team as a major contender
for the title, what is your response to that?

I always say every single team going to a World Cup would
rate themselves as a contender. I think one thing that we are lacking as a team
is the international exposure which countries like New
Zealand, England,
USA and Canada have had
all along. They play on a regular basis and they know what it is to on a
constant basis play at international level and therefore their players will be
ready for that.

With us, we haven’t had the opportunity to play as
regularly as we would have loved to, or as regularly as they are playing, and
therefore that gives them a bit of an advantage. But nevertheless, I think
going to the World Cup, you are putting yourself in a position where you want
to compete and you want to be as competitive as possible. That’s why I believe
any of the 16 teams has got the potential to go out there and become ultimate
winners of the tournament.

 –o0o–

The South African women start their campaign on 6 March against Italy, followed by the two remaining group-stage encounters on the same day, first against fellow African qualifiers Uganda, and finally against New Zealand.