Sylvia Brunt of New Zealand scores a try against Wales. Photo / photosport.nz
The New Zealand Under-18 girls team competing at this weekend’s World School Sevens tournament are inspired by the Black Ferns World Cup success — and they have one of the winners in their ranks.
Sylvia Brunt was the youngest player in the Black Ferns squad and meets the age-eligibility criteria for this junior sevens tournament by just one day.
Coach Tony Christie said Brunt is an “exceptional talent” who was able to bring out the best in her teammates.
“She’s brought a lot of high performance to the group and she’s just an amazing human, humble and hard-working — a great role model,” Christie said. “We’ve got some girls in here who are in year 11, so it’s really cool for them to be mingling with a World Cup winner.”
Arene Landon-Lane, a year 13 student at St Mary’s College in Wellington who plays in the Wellington NPC side, told the Herald she has always looked up to the Black Ferns.
“I would make goals for my future self, and one of those goals was to make the Black Ferns,” she said. “This team is kind of like a mini-Black Ferns.”
Christie said many in the group could follow Brunt into Black Ferns honours.
“The talent we have within our team is amazing and I see [the tournament] being a crucial step in their pathways to the Black Ferns sevens or 15s, if not NPC or Aupiki,” he said. “These girls all have the talent to continue on to the pathway to the highest honour.”
The tournament returns to Auckland this weekend after a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19 and features schools sides and national Under-18s representative teams from around the globe. More than 100 different teams from Canada, Japan, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand have played since the competition was founded in 2016.
World School Sevens tournament director Phil Gaze told the Herald that 30 players from the past six years have gone on to play at higher levels, including the All Blacks and Wallabies. Che Clark, Caleb Tangitau and Moses Leo are All Blacks Sevens stars who have come through this tournament. Eleven of the 16 players in the Australian women’s sevens team have also played in this event.
In 2019, the event saw more than 6000 people through the gate. This weekend, Gaze hopes that figure will go beyond 10,000.
For the team representing Nauru, the tournament presents an opportunity for new experiences: Some in the squad have never played on grass. When they play at home they run on a gravel surface.
Dagan Kaierua, the Nauru manager, said getting on the grass would be a major change and it would be the first time some of his players had experienced full-contact rugby.
“We don’t have contact sport due to the ground conditions, we play a modified tag setup.
“Most of the boys and girls want full contact but we can’t really accept that due to the [playing surfaces] and player welfare.”
He said some of his players would need to learn what the field markings represented.
“Back on the islands we don’t even have a rugby field, so the lining of the rugby field is very new to the boys in terms of awareness and sideline — 10m line, 22m line.
”We do what we can back at home to put sand on the concrete ground,” Kaierua said.
“To get participation to increase on the islands is to have tournaments like these, giving an eye opener to what rugby is really about. Back at home, we’re lucky enough to get two or three teams to compete against each other.”
Kaierua said his side had financial support from the Nauru Government but a lot of the costs were fund raised by their community. They plan to bring a girls team next year.
The Welsh were also inspired by the Black Ferns’ efforts and chose to send only a girls team. The Herald understands it cost the Wales girls more than $100,000 to get to New Zealand. Supported financially by local organisations and the Welsh Rugby Union, it was an investment they believed was a “no brainer”.
Wales team manager Jo Jones said: “This will actually be the first time we’ve brought a female rugby team overseas to play in an international tournament.
“We’re really big on pushing that equality and making sure girls have the opportunities.”
Welsh captain Gwennan Hopkins said the recent World Cup “definitely influenced us all.”
“We all wanted to come to New Zealand, especially because of the World Cup.
“The game’s growing a lot in Wales so to be able to come out to NZ right after the World Cup is a massive opportunity for us.”
The tournament gets underway on Saturday, streaming live at nzherald.co.nz and on Sky Sport.