Sevens: Moerewa star has chance for Olympic glory

Janna Vaughan.

Moerewa's Janna Vaughan is one of two new faces in the 22-strong squad of contracted players for the 2016 New Zealand Women's Sevens squad.

The 27-year-old Far North athlete certainly kicked the new year off in spectacular fashion after helping Manawatu claim the women's national sevens title on Sunday, beating Wellington 26-19 in the final, and clearly doing enough at the Rotorua tournament to impress New Zealand coach Sean Horan.

Well aware the selection also offered an opportunity to make the New Zealand team heading to this year's Olympics, Vaughan said her focus was on doing the damage on the field when the second leg of the Women's Sevens Series kicks off in Brazil next month.

"Just shows what you can do, when you put your head down," she said.

The selection means there are now two players of Northland origin in the team, the other being Kaikohe-born 2015 Women's Sevens Player of the Year, Portia Woodman.

Horan said the new Far North player would make a welcome addition to his arsenal, and she had been on his radar for the past 12 months.

"She brings a real physicality to a centre role. She's aggressive and abrasive and we need that."

Last year certainly proved a busy one for Vaughan. She featured in the Kiwi Ferns league side which overwhelmed the Jillaroos by two games to one at the Auckland Nines in early February, and then went on to play her first rugby union international with the Black Ferns in the Women's Super Series tournament in Calgary .

She noted both league and rugby - along with their respective nines and sevens versions - required slightly different approaches.

"A lot of skills are transferable. The tackling technique is a bit different. In league you want to hold them up and smother the ball, in rugby it's a lower tackle to get them on the ground. The physicality [of both games, however] is very similar."

The New Zealand Women's team is set to play at the Sao Paulo Sevens tournament on February 20-21.

Twenty-two players have been named in the contracted squad by coach Sean Horan from which 12 will be selected for the sevens team to compete at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.