Ferns announce contracted 7s squad

New Zealand have revealed the 20 contracted players for their 2017 squad – but the announcement has become as much a tale of who is not in as much as who is.

Published by John Birch, January 19th, 2017

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Ferns announce contracted 7s squad

20 players selected by Ferns - but its their 2016 Player of the Year Selica Winiata's non-selection that has grabbed headlines

The Olympic silver medal winners have announced a squad of 20 contracted players for 2017, made up of 18 fully-contracted players and two training contracts, leaving a further spot to filled later in the year.

But it was the absence of 2016 Player of the Year Selica Winiata and Linda Itunu that quickly raised questions on social media

The contracted squad is (* indicates a new contracted player):

• Sarah Goss (Captain) – Manawatu• Shakira Baker – Waikato• Michaela Blyde – Bay of Plenty• Kelly Brazier – Bay of Plenty• Gayle Broughton – Taranaki• Rebekah Cordero-Tufuga – Manawatu*• Lyric Faleafaga – Wellington (Training Contract)*• Theresa Fitzpatrick – Auckland*• Crystal Mayes – Manawatu (Training Contract)*• Tyla Nathan-Wong – Auckland• Cheyelle Robins-Reti – Waikato*• Alena Saili – Otago*• Terina Te Tamaki – Waikato• Ruby Tui – Canterbury• Stacey Waaka – Waikato• Katarina Whata-Simpkins – Wellington• Renee Wickliffe – Counties Manukau*• Niall Williams – Auckland• Tenika Willison – Waikato*• Portia Woodman – Counties Manukau

Winiata’s absence became even more noteworthy when the reason leaked out. George Heagney reporting onStuff.co.nzwrote: “Who thought trying to score tries was a crime? Well that's what ended up costing exciting speedster Selica Winiata a spot in the New Zealand women's sevens contract list for the year when it was announced on Thursday.”

"The coach [Allan Bunting] told me I attack too much with the ball," Winiata said. "I'm thinking 'is that not what you do in sevens?' They were looking at developing the younger players and that's all I got told. I was pretty gutted, pretty disappointed. I thought I had ticked all the boxes and had a pretty good nationals. I was pretty surprised. But I think overall just disappointed."

Heagney points out that Winiata was the New Zealand Rugby women's player of the year last year. And that she felt she had done everything she could, but the final decision as out of her control, though she would have liked a proper explanation about why she was left out.

Winiata was also omitted from the Rio Olympics squad last year, the explanation then being that under Sean Horan “she didn't bring enough spark” which Heagney says “is a conflicting message to what she has been told now.” Or as Winiata herself put it, “damned if you do, damned if you don't.

She believed Bunting may be changing the role of the halfback and want them to be more of a playmaker.

It may also be age that counted against her. Sevens is a young players game and Winiata is now 30. She may be a world class player now, but all of the leading sevens teams are now looking to Tokyo in 2020, and the top three in Rio have shown that the route to medals requires a long term plan.

That said, she can now concentrate on fifteens and the World Cup – which can only be to the Ferns advantage in August

Meanwhile, Ferns Sevens Head Coach Allan Bunting is excited about his team: “There is a lot of potential in this team. The high level of performance at the National Sevens tournament on the weekend made selections very hard. The higher standard of coaching at Provincial Union level is really making our job difficult which is great, but we are lucky because they are delivering quality rugby players which will make coaching the squad easier.

“There is already a lot of experience in the squad, but it is youthful experience. Every player can go through to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and most of them could still be going for gold at the two games after that.

“Lyric Faleafaga is in her last year of school and Alena Saili has just finished school last year. It’s great to see amazing talent coming through at such a young age which is exciting for the future of the team. Now that sevens is an Olympic sport more teenage athletes are seeing it as a path to competing on the international stage at the highest level.

“When selecting the squad we were looking for a mix of play-maker ability in the middle and power, speed and skill on the outside. I’m very happy that we have real potential in all these positions and that we have gained some size, height and have speed throughout the squad.

“Because we have two training contracts that means we have a space for potential other training contracts and also we have left one full contract that we can fill later. We will be looking to see who comes through the Go For Gold programme, which is aimed at attracting new athletes into sevens rugby.

“The focus for the next couple of weeks, heading into Sydney, will be continuing on from what we started in Dubai which is building our foundations and bringing the new members up to speed on what we have learnt.”

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