The Black Ferns Sevens trained at Rotovegas Boxing Gym on Tuesday. Photo / Stephen Parker
The Black Ferns Sevens trained at Rotovegas Boxing Gym on Tuesday. Photo / Stephen Parker
The Black Ferns Sevens are in formidable form this season, comfortably atop the HSBC Sevens World Series ladder, but how would they go at boxing? Sports reporter David Beck finds out.
A few Black Ferns Sevens players might want to consider a boxing career when they're done with rugby.
With April's Hong Kong Sevens postponed until October due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Black Ferns Sevens don't have another scheduled tournament until the HSBC Langford Sevens in May.
That means plenty of time for training and this week the Mount Maunganui-based team kept things interesting with a trip to Rotorua, participating in a class at Rotovegas Boxing Gym today,followed by a recovery session at Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake).
The players and their coaching staff were put through their paces for almost an hour. Co-coach Alan Bunting, a Rotorua old boy, said the trip to Central Bay of Plenty was about "connection".
"It's time to really set off on the next part of our journey, get our culture right - the deeper stuff that lies underneath our waka really. It's good to mix it up, do some stuff together - we went ten-pin bowling earlier.
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"The workout was good, I like boxing. There's something about it, it gets the adrenaline going."
The Black Ferns Sevens resume includes Commonwealth Games, World Cup and World Series titles but there is one which has eluded them; Olympic gold.
They suffered heartbreak in Rio, going down to Australia in the final and having to settle for silver but another opportunity is on the horizon with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics just five months away.
Black Ferns co-coach Alan Bunting puts in the work with his team. Photo / Stephen Parker
However, while Bunting admits the Olympic campaign is at the back of everyone's minds, he insisted there was plenty of work to get through before then.
"We've still got lots of stuff along the way, we're not too focused on Olympics right now. Obviously, Hong Kong has been cancelled but we might have something else in that window we want to work on.
"Every tournament is an opportunity to learn and grow so we focus on that tournament and what comes out of it. We still have a lot of growing to do so once we're finished in France (May 30-31) we'll really focus on the Olympics.
"We're just enjoying each day at the moment, it's about enjoying the journey, that's the most important part."
Michaela Blyde works on her hook. Photo / Stephen Parker
He put the team's success so far this year down to a constant desire to be better. Despite tournament wins in Hamilton and Sydney this year, Bunting said there was plenty of room for improvement and it was going to be a hard task when the time did come to choose an Olympic squad.
"We work pretty hard on not getting complacent. We marked ourselves about a 6.5 out of 10 in Hamilton and maybe 7.5 in Sydney, in terms of our potential. We're looking at what we can achieve, we want to be the best we can possibly be and we still have a lot of work to do with that.
"The real strength of our team is the internal competition and it's going to be a hard team to select. But, everyone knows in this group, the harder the bottom person pushes, the further the top goes up. It's not about the person at the top, it's about the person chasing that person and the person chasing that person.
"It's the one right at the back chasing everyone that will make this team as good as it can be. Everyone is important and the ones who end up staying home are a big part of this unit and the journey."
The Black Ferns Sevens trained at Rotovegas Boxing Gym on Tuesday. Photo / Stephen Parker
He said the hot weather in New Zealand recently had made for some tough training sessions but it was good preparation for Tokyo.
"We know it's going to be hot there and we have a lot happening in the next bit to make sure our preparation and recovery is right."
Rotovegas Boxing Gym owner Aaron Warren said the team was "fantastic to work with" and gave out a 'player of the day' medal to Gayle Broughton.
"They were awesome, they picked up the technique pretty quickly and then got into the hard yards. The fitness levels are really good considering they were basically punching a bag for 30 minutes non-stop.
"Gayle has been in here before and she showed good leadership. She shone with her examples of the technique and being an example for the other players. They were all brilliant."
