Women’s Sevens in the Spotlight

The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has announced a group of 12 players to participate in a warm up 7’s tournament in China end of October. The team will assemble on Monday 22 October in Johannesburg for a four day camp before departing to Guangzhou China on 24 October to compete in the Guangzhou Zengcheng International Women’s Invitational Rugby Sevens Tournament.

The invitational Sevens tournament in China will serve as a warm up tournament for the SA women’s team in preparation for the 1st tournament of the inaugural World Sevens series that kicks of end of November in Dubai. SA is one of six countries that were invited to this prestige event. South Africa, China, Brazil, France, Russia and Spain will compete against the six core teams that are made up by England, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, Canada and USA.

The inaugural Women’s series will see teams compete alongside the men’s tournament in Dubai where after they will split from the men to forges its own identity in Houston (USA), Guangzhou (China), and Amsterdam (Netherlands).

IRB Chief executive Brett Gosper said: “With an eye on Rio 2016 we are determined to continue to enhance the women’s game so that the competition is the very best that it can be. The quality of women’s Sevens has been improving dramatically in recent seasons and we expect that women’s Sevens World Series will push those standards higher.”

Women’s Sevens in South Africa has grown and become more competitive with more tournaments on a regular basis. Free State Women recently won the Middelburg Sevens as part of their preparation for the Inter-provincial tournament that will be hosted by the Blue Bulls in Pretoria. WP, Boland and SWD Eagles will take part in a Warm up Triangular Sevens tournament in the Boland on 20 October also in preparation for the IPT Sevens Tournament.

Western Province, Eastern Provincial, SWD and the Blue Bulls are the early favourites to take the crown from the defending champions Border, with Border missing six of their key players who were called up for national duty.

The SA Women’s squad for the upcoming tournament in China will see two new additions to the team. SWD Eagles outside centre who also debuted earlier this year for the SA Women’s 15s team against the Nomads in the two match series Mathrin Simmers from the Titans Women’s Rugby club in Knysna and Belle Benele Makwezele from Western Province.

The 2011 SA Inter-provincial Women’s Sevens champions, Border making up the bulk of the team with six players out of the 12 women squad with WP and EP both with two players and SWD Eagles and Blue Bulls each with one player.