2019 Cape Town 7s Champion - New Zealand

Under the Posts – Dec 9-15

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Another big week in women’s rugby as look at Cape Town 7s, week 9 of Tyrrells Premier, Germany drops from the Rugby Europe Championships, Wales adds another woman to their Board and Netherlands 15s looks to rebuild.

We also look at rugby awards for New Zealand and Australia as well as WADA sanctions against Russia that could affect their 7s teams. 

Can’t wait a week? Join us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram as we will be posting daily. We have a bit more dialogue on Twitter if you’d like to join in.

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This week we’re featuring the Tyrrells Premier 15s league. They’ve just announced the live stream schedule for their remaining matches and round nine was the biggest week yet.

Let’s  start from the top, Saracens remain the only unbeaten team after a dramatic comeback over the Harlequins. Not only was it dramatic but history making as they overcame a 0-24 to win 33-27. This is the biggest comeback in Tyrrells Premier 15s history.

Loughborough also moved up in the rankings as they defeated Gloucester-Hartpurty 36-17. Wasps remain in fifth place beating Richmond 36-5. Bristol also remains stagnant in the rankings even having beat Darlington 17-10.

Semi-finals of Tyrrells will be May 9-10 and finals will be May 31.

15s

Not a ton of information out there on this but Germany played a warmup match earlier in December, losing 56-0 to France Militaire XV. A few weeks later Scrum Queens noticed that they had been removed from the Rugby Europe Championships website. There are rumors of financial issues but nothing else really…

Liza Burgess of Wales has been elected to the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) Board. She is the first woman member elected, as Aileen Richards was co-opted in 2015 to the board. This makes two females on a board of 17.

Sarah Hunter talks with Yahoo Sports about their recent success and looking forward to 2020 and also the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

Sylke Haverkorn is a former test prop for Netherlands and she has been tasked with rebuilding 15s for her country. She comes with a strong pedigree as she’s coached Rugbyende Utrechtste Studenten, the club she won five consecutive premier division titles with as a player (2012-16),  she’s coached men’s rugby at Rugbyclub Nieuwegein, and is also head coach of the Turkey women’s 7s.

Their first event was a two match series against Hong Kong. Hong Kong swept the series winning 14-12 in their first match and 18-0 in the second. Now they look forward to the Rugby Europe Women’s Championship where they will face Russia on March 7.

7s

New Zealand has taken back-to-back titles in Dubai and Cape Town. With the win over Australia 17-7 in Cape Town, they also become the inaugural HSBC Cape Town Sevens champions.

Canada took third place over a feisty French side, winning 22-17. This has shaken up the standings a bit as New Zealand is on top with 56 points, Australia is in second at 50 points and USA moves down to third with 48 points. Canada is in fourth with 44 and France rounds out the top five spots with 40 points.

Teams now have a break but we will see them again in Hamilton, NZ on January 25-26, 2020. It’s another back-to-back weekend with the men where teams will immediately travel to Sydney, Australia on February 1-2.

Recently the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced that Russia would be banned from global sports event for four years. Russian athletes can compete at World Championships and Olympics games under a neutral banner as they did at the 2018 Winter Olympics. 

This may affect Russia  7s severely but World Rugby has confirmed they will not make a decision on Russia’s involvement until they have had confirmation on appeals and further details.

Russia needs to compete in the upcoming Olympic repechage  but if they cannot would potentially be replaced by France if unable to compete.

It’s award season and this week we saw New Zealand and Australia hand out the accolades. The lists of awards are quite long so click the links for more details.

Misc News

Inside Women’s Rugby talks with Rachel McLachlan about playing for Scotland and the DMP Sharks. 

Try Hards Podcast talks with Tyla Nathan Wong at Cape Town 7s.

USA Rugby has been having some bigger troubles of late and their latest effort to put a band-aid on the issues includes an organizational restructure and task force. Essentially USAR will be decentralizing and empowering the regions…in simpler terms they will focus on compliance, insurance and the National Teams. Everything else will trickle down to the GUs, SROs and College Conferences. 

Hannah Stolba has been on a rugby journey the last few years, most recently playing with the Glendale Merlins, Barbarians FC and Waitaki Wahine in New Zealand. She has now committed to playing for Crealia El Salvador in Central America.

Marlie Packer talks to Telegraph UK about her rugby journey and desire for for a Rugby World Cup gold medal.

Munster have put out a call to previous players as they are looking to compile a database. They would like to honor and acknowledge the contribution of former players.

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