The Sydney University Women’s Rugby club have announced their squad that will tackle the 2016 UON CC7s. The team features a sensational mix of experienced players from the Sydney premiership winning XV side, as well as a number of talented developing and established players that have joined the club for the sevens season, including recent Rio Olympian Marie Yamaguchi. The club has been developing their sevens program; returning to the Central Coast after a two-year absence having won the inaugural tournament in 2009.
SUWR have been drawn in Pool B alongside notoriously strong Sunnybank, ACT based Ozboks and the Japanese national 7s team. The girls in blue and gold will be looking to make a strong statement, and look threatening to cause some tournament upsets.
Barbara Waddell, Kirrily Laws, Emily Chancellor, Fiona Jones and Josephine Bavatu have come off the back a strong XV season, all playing pivotal roles in the club’s grand final win against Parramatta two blues in August.
Country girls, Sarah Halverson and Olivia Patterson join Uni for the sevens season. Both girls have had an impressive year, with Sarah representing Country NSW in the fifteen a side National Championships, and Olivia travelling over to Swansea to represent Australia at the World University Games.
Jannicke IJdens, a member of the Dutch National 7s, is playing with uni whilst in Sydney, and is now coming back to central coast for the 3rd time. “It’s one of the best invitational tournaments I played. Overall the rugby level and tournaments are better in Australia then in the Netherlands”. Rachel Crothers, Tamyka Laws and Montana Walters also join the Sydney uni squad and have been selected in the team for the CC7s.
Head Coach Stevie Bennie commented on the upcoming tournament and his team selection;
“Central Coast 7s has grown a lot in the last few years and is very close to a professional standard now which will test our skills and resolve. It will be especially good for our girls building for the National Championships in November this year.
We have been building our program at Sydney Uni for 2-3 years now and we have some great players coming through our senior team and more recently some youth girls who are all pushing for representative honors. We still have plenty to learn but we have had some strong results in lead up tournaments which is great. There will definitely be some players to watch in the blue and gold at CC7s. We are really looking forward to a great weekend of rugby and hope everyone enjoys the tournament!”
Sydney University Women’s Rugby 2016 UON CC7s Squad & representative honors:
Barbara Waddell- NSW 7s, Sydney Women’s XV
Emily Chancellor – Australian University 7s, NSW 7s, 2016 Wallaroos squad
Sarah Halvorsen – NSW 7s, Aussie 7s Pacific Games team 2015
Olivia Patterson – Australian University 7s, NSW 7s
Kirrily Laws – NSW 7s
Rachel Crothers – Aussie Pearls 2015
Marie Yamaguchi – Japan 7s, Rio Olympics 2016
Jannicke IJdens – Netherlands 7s
Fiona Jones – England Premier league, Sydney Women’s XV
Montana Walters – Aussie 7s Youth development squad
Tamyka Laws- Youth NSW 7s
Josephine Bavatu – Fiji 7s 2014-2015, NSW 7s, Aust Fiji Rugby League (C) 2016
Head Coach, Stephen Bennie
