Springbok Women’s Sevens coach Renfred Dazel said on Wednesday the intensity of their training sessions will increase significantly in the next two weeks as they finalise their preparations for the Women’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series leg in Dubai from November 30 to December 1.
Dazel’s charges will compete against New Zealand, USA and France in Pool A. And while the coach admitted that it would be a challenging tournament, he was excited to kick off what will be a demanding 2017/18 season against some of the top sides in the world.
The team has three vital tournaments lined up in 2018, the first of which is the 2018/19 Women’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series Qualifier in Hong Kong in April, which will be followed by the Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast a week later, and the Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco in July.
They will also participate in an invitational tournament in Brisbane, Australia, in February to sharpen up on their game time and to get a taste of the weather conditions expected at the Commonwealth Games.
“Our focus in the last few weeks has been on analysing the opposition and working on our conditioning, but we plan to increase the intensity of our training sessions from next week so that we hit the ground running going into the Dubai Sevens,” said Dazel.
“New Zealand are the top side on the rankings, so we have a good idea of what to expect from them. France play quite similarly to Russia who we faced last year, and we met the USA in the 2016 tournament, so we know what we are in for.”
Fortunately for Dazel, the players who were nursing niggling injuries are back at training, and so is veteran Marithy Pienaar who has recovered fully from surgery to her hip and is currently being phased back into training twice a day.
Dazel also invited four players who were members of the SA Select Women’s team that participated in the 15-a-side tour to England last month – Unathi Mali and Nosiphiwo Goda (who are capped Springbok Women’s Sevens players), Aseza Hele and Bianca Meyer – to train with the team. They will also be considered for selection.
“We are training with a bigger squad, while a few players who are still studying will return after their exams, so we are in a good position at the moment,” said Dazel.
“The fact that most of the players in the group have been exposed to international competition of some kind also means that we will enter the Dubai Sevens in a better position than last season.
“Hopefully this will set us in good stead as we look to build on last year’s performance in which we advanced to the Cup semi-final for the first time in my four-year coaching tenure with the team, and a solid season in which qualified for the Rugby World Cup Sevens by winning the Rugby Africa Sevens in our last tournament.”
Dazel will finalise his team to travel to Dubai in the next two weeks, while they will depart for Dubai on Saturday, 25 November.
