Under the Posts – Week of Apr 2, 2017

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Japan beat South Africa in Hong Kong to claim a place on next year's HSBC World Rugby Women's Sevens Series.
Japan beat South Africa in Hong Kong to claim a place on next year’s HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series.

The top headlines from last week include Canada sweeping the CAN-AM series, more sports fight for equality and Japan re-joins the HSBC Women’s Seven Series in 2018.

As a reminder, we are doing weekly posts recapping the top women’s rugby news. Can’t wait a week? Join us on Twitter or on our Facebook page as we will be posting daily.

Canada swept the 2017 CANAM series as they defeated the USA 76-15 at Chula Vista. Canada now looks forward to a tour in New Zealand where they will face the Black Ferns and Australia before the WRWC. USA has yet to announce any additional fixtures in the lead up to August.

Scrumqueens spoke with Lichfield’s director of rugby Becky Williams about Lichfield being left out of the new Women’s Super League in England. The oversight has been quite the controversey and an online petition that quickly gathered more than 5,000 signatures encouraged the RFU to re-consider.

The team boasts many England international stars and with more than 15 years’ experience in the premiership, Lichfield have cemented themselves as one of the top clubs in the women’s game. Identified by the RFU as a ‘full-house’ club, Lichfield boasts junior teams at three different levels and a first and second team – which are referred to as ‘red’ and ‘green’ respectively.

We’ve been following the US Women’s Hockey team as they fight to gain equality in sport. The strike has ended and some progress has been made but is it enough? Excelle Sports recaps the entire saga and challenges us to keep challenging the status quo for women’s sports.

India’s women’s rugby team won silver at the Asia Rugby Seven’s Trophy in Laos in February. For a small nation where women’s sports are limited, much less women’s rugby…this was a huge victory. Their first International match was in 2009 and they’ve seen some growth and progress since then, in fact more females than men play rugby!

The coaching team is now focused on high performance training for the Under-18 and Under-20 teams, with the former participating in a tournament in Dubai towards the end of the year. For the senior team, the Asian Games in 2018 in Jakarta is the main focus where their participation will hinge on improving their current ranking (10 in Asia, according to head coach Nasser Hussain) as well as an approval from the Indian Olympic Association.

Fresh from an appearance at the HSBC USA Sevens, Argentina is heading to Hong Kong with one thing on their minds – securing core team status on the 2017-18 series.

The Republic of Ireland women’s national soccer team has threatened to boycott matches as their frustration at the Football Association of Ireland’s (FAI) failure to address concerns over wages and equality with their male counterparts. Along with the Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland they recently held a press conference in order to gain exposure for the issues.

SIPTU and Professional Footballers’ Association of Ireland (PFAI) representatives secured an agreement with the FAI after nine hours of talks which ended at 4am on Thursday.

On the other side of the pond, the U.S. women’s national soccer team and U.S. Soccer have reached a new collective bargaining agreement, the two sides announced.

An awesome video from World Rugby highlighting the growth of women’s sevens.

Ghislaine is one of our faves and is now the points leader of the 2016-17 Women’s Series. She’s at the top with 131 overall.

ScrumQueens looks ahead to the Hong Kong 7s qualifier and believes that South Africa is the team to beat. But the pressure is on!

It’s been a tough couple of years for South Africa. Despite looking the strongest team at the 2015 WSWS qualifier in Dublin they fell in the semi-finals to Ireland. Then, despite qualifying for the Rio Olympics they were denied a place by their own Olympic NOC because they had not qualified directly through the World Series – a wildly unrealistic requirement as they would have had to finish in the top four. That, in turn, denied them a chance to qualify for this year’s World Series, as qualification was via the placings in the Games.

So now, after a gap of two years, the South Africans at last have a chance to put things right.

Becky Carlson, head coach of Quinnipiac University women’s rugby gives us valuable perspective into the trans athlete population. This is especially important with athletes like Mack Beggs and the controversies surrounding bathrooms.

Flanker Paula Fitzpatrick looks back at Ireland’s historic 17-14 victory over New Zealand at Women’s Rugby World Cup 2014 in Paris. Can the Irish repeat that form as hosts of this year’s tournament?

USA Rugby announces a multi-year agreement with adidas. USA Rugby joins New Zealand, Germany, Portugal and more in wearing the three stripes of adidas.

Lisa Frazer is Jamaica’s national women’s rugby team head coach and is on the roster. She gives us a bit of insight as her team prepares to attempt to qualify for the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series at Hong Kong 7s.

Jade Konkel of Scotland lists her top five players.

The U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame Class of 2017 includes the 1991 U.S. Women’s Rugby World Cup Team and Candi Orsini a member of the 1991 team. CONGRATS!

Japan will take their place on the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series in 2017-18 after battling back to beat South Africa 22-10 in the final of the qualifying tournament in Hong Kong on Friday.

Speaking afterwards, Japan captain Chiharu Nakamura said her side were motivated by the disappointment of losing their core team status last season.

“We’re happy to win and we wanted to win. We want to play the top level teams on the series and now we will. We will enjoy tonight!

We feel strong that it’s time to expand the Women’s Sevens Series. The Hong Kong qualifier showed that Japan and South Africa deserve to both be there. You could also argue that Italy, Netherlands and China deserve a shot as well.

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