The New Zealand women’s 7s team hopes to gauge more game time and work on improving their combinations when they play in the Fun Flavour Super 7s Series today.
Tenika Wilson said they had been asking for more game time for the past six months.
Wilson started training with the Black Ferns 7s team as a 16-year-old, too young to play for the national team but recognised as a future talent. With a background in touch rugby for New Zealand, Wilson transfers her ball skills, footwork and pace to sevens seamlessly.
She was named player of the tournament at the 2018 NZ national 7s and months later played a crucial role in the Commonwealth Games gold medal match against Australia.
She was part of the Olympics gold medal-winning side at the Tokyo Games.
“Also we don’t have the other girls here so we are looking to get more connection and have more game time with the new girls but also to have some fun,” she said.
“Training has been tough and coming here having to train under this weather is tough but we are glad to get offshore and play in a beautiful country and play some rugby.”
Another player Risi Pouri-Lane graduated from the New Zealand women’s development team into the Black Ferns 7s in 2018.
The former touch and judo representative started playing rugby as a 10-year-old.
From Motueka High School, Pouri-Lane was an instrumental member of the schools 7s team that won the Under 18 Trans-Tasman Sevens in 2017.
In 2018 Pouri-Lane was called into the Black Ferns 7s squad for the Commonwealth Games and sat on the bench during the dramatic gold medal match.
Months later she captained the New Zealand Youth Olympic team to a gold medal in Buenos Aires. She was part of the Olympics gold medal-winning side at the Tokyo Games.
She is glad to be playing rugby again after a long break following their gold medal win in Tokyo last year.
She said this tournament would test them and they looked forward to what was in place for them.
“This tournament is going to test our strength as a team, so we’re working together and we know that Fiji is quite physical and we know they will come down hard on us so we are looking forward to the competition.”
