Pathway to sevens stardom

The New Zealand Rugby Union's Go For Gold project is producing results in Wanganui with the emergence of a secondary schools girls sevens programme that could propel players onto the national stage later in the year.

A two-night round robin competition hosted by Wanganui High School over the past 10 days gave three schools the chance to improve their games.

The hosts dished out a 20-0 thrashing to Wanganui Girls' College on Tuesday night, hard on the heels of 20-7 victory over the girls from the east the week before. WHS also beat Turakina Maori Girls' College 15-5 on Tuesday and 15-0 the week before.

TMGC bounced back on Tuesday with a narrow 20-17 win over WGC but lost to the same side 10-5 the previous week.

The mini round robin was to provide practice for a possible tournament in Bulls at the end of the month involving other schools from the Central Districts.

However, Wanganui Rugby Union community rugby development officer Jordan Farrington said that had yet to be confirmed.

"This has all come out of the New Zealand union's Go For Gold project and has been ticking away for about 18 months here in Wanganui," Farrington said.

The aim was to give the girls more game time in preparation for the Taranaki Regional Sevens tournament in September and a chance to represent the region at the nationals in December.

WHS rugby administrator Marilyn Wilkie said while each side had grown in recent match-ups, more game time was needed before taking on the big guns at regional and national level.

"The girls have all improved, but WHS were clearly the ones to beat in this latest round robin. If the tournament in Bulls goes ahead that will give us more game time and after that TMGC and WHS may tick along playing 10-a-side, until the end of the netball season when training for the Taranaki Sevens will get serious," Wilkie said yesterday.

"All three teams have a shot [in Taranaki], but WHS continue to improve and the girls are looking forward to a period of intense training in the build-up to Taranaki under the skilful coaching eye of former rep Danny Tamehana.

"It's been great having all three girls schools involved in this tournament, and the improvement in the girls' skills and understanding of the game is noticeable each time they meet."