Lane names Australian side for Oceania battle
Australian women’s Sevens coach Chris Lane has named his squad of 12 for the Oceania Women’s Sevens Championships taking place in Lautoka, Fiji, on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 August.
Published by Scrum Queens, July 27th, 2012
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The side for the competition features three members of the Rugby World Cup Sevens 2009-winning side in current captain Rebecca Tavo(pictured), Tricia Brown and Bo De La Cruz.
It also features five members of Australias Womens Rugby World Cup 2010 side with Iliseva Batibasaga, Brown, Cheyenne Campbell, Cobie-Jane Morgan and Shannon Parry.
The side also features some relatively new faces with youngster Alicia Quirk getting set to earn her third cap for the Qantas Womens Sevens and Amy Turner set to make just her second tournament appearance.
Australia are the top seed of Pool A, alongside Samoa, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. New Zealand head up Pool B ahead of Fiji, Cook Islands and Tonga.
The tournament is a regional qualifier for Rugby World Cup Sevens 2013 in Russia.
While most teams will be out to secure a Rugby World Cup Sevens berth Australia and New Zealand have both already qualified for the World Cup with the Australians the reigning World Cup holders
The top team from the other six competitors will advance to the next round of qualification at the Asian Rugby Football Union regional qualifier in Pune, India in October.
Qantas Womens Sevens coach Chris Lane said the tournament would be a further opportunity to build on his teams training.
Its still about growth, Lane said.
While we have already qualified were treating the upcoming camp and the tournament very seriously and were looking to continue building on our strengths.
We havent played any of the teams in our pool before so thats really good and is sign that Rugby Sevens is continuing to expand.
Weve had our development year and learned a lot in a short time and now its time to get some transfer from our training into tournaments.
Were not too far off the mark but were always looking for continued learning and growth.
Even though weve already qualified we still want to win, its still the Oceania Championships.
Australia have a four-day camp at the Sydney Academy of Sport, Narrabeen from 28-31 July before departing for Fiji on Wednesday 1 August.
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