Pools set for Hong Kong 7s
The draw for the women’s Hong Kong 7s competition has been made. The event, which takes place on the weekend of March 26 sees the national teams from a range of Asian nations competing as well as invitational teams from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Published by Scrum Queens, March 9th, 2010
3 minute read
The 12 participating teams include eight national representative sides from Asia, led by the reigning IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009 Bowl Champions China, who recently beat the USA at the Las Vegas Sevens, and Kazakhstan, Asias sole direct entry to the IRB Womens Rugby World Cup (15s) this year in London. Other Asian teams include the Arabian Gulf, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and hosts Hong Kong.
The national team of Papua New Guinea rounds out the full representative squads at this years tournament. Three of the worlds top womens representative 7s sides are also taking part including five-time Cup champions Aotearoa Maori from New Zealand. The Aussie Amazons from Australia and Pretoria Universitys Tuks from South Africa complete the competitive field.
The 12 teams have been divided into the four pools as follows:
Pool A: Aussie Amazons, Arabian Gulf, Singapore
Pool B:China, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea
Pool C:Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong
Pool D: NZ Aotearoa Maori, Kazakhstan, SA Tuks
The host team, Hong Kong, attended the pool draw this week.
From Pool A, The Aussie Amazons will be favourites to emerge with a number of full international Australian players expected to travel. National captain Cheryl Soon said this week:
We are just preparing now to go to the Hong Kong Sevens at the end of the month - playing as the Aussie Amazons. We've had to fund the trip ourselves because unfortunately there is no funding at the moment, but we just want to play rugby, we want to go there and defend our title. It is all about the hunger, the desire and passion and our love for the game.
In Pool B, China will be clear favourites as they come into the competition fresh from their success at the recent Las Vegas 7s, where they beat a top USA side in the final.
Pool C will be tough with the home team looking to impress and both Thailand and Japan have been progressing internationally in recent seasons, while the NZ Maori team will face a tough task to come out of their pool with Kazakhstan and the South African invitational team.