This Sunday, February 28, Easts Rugby Union will host the inaugural Queensland vs NSW Sevens series, with the two states set to go head-to-head across Youth Boys, Youth Girls and Senior Women’s divisions.
Ahead of the tournament, Queensland has confirmed their three squads, with players from around the state set to converge on David Wilson Field on Sunday.
The Women’s team has been selected from the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) Women’s Sevens Academy, and off the back of the Queensland AON University Sevens Series late last year.
Former Australian Sevens star Rachel Crothers will feature for the women’s team, as well as Isabella Nasser – sister of current Reds frontrower Josh Nasser – while Griffith University’s Kahli Henwood will captain the side.
For the Youth Boys, Murgon product Floyd Aubrey, a recent graduate from Marist College Ashgrove will line up alongside a host of talented young players from Brisbane, Toowoomba, the Gold Coast and Ipswich.
The Youth Girls side features experienced campaigners Jaime Cope and Piper Flynn, who both have experience at the AON University level with University of Queensland and Griffith respectively.
Queensland Rugby Union’s High Performance Manager for Sevens and Women’s Rugby – Reg Tayler - said: “This Sunday provides an great opportunity for the next generation of Queensland Sevens talent to play competitive inter-state matches, something we haven’t been able to do since 2019.
“The challenges of COVID meant that representative opportunities for our state teams were put on hold, so it’s great to have NSW making to the trip north to Queensland this weekend.
“We were lucky last year to get an internal Queensland based AON University Series up and running and subsequently we were able to identify plenty of talent for both our Women’s and Youth Girls teams.
‘We recently had our senior men’s QAS team compete in Olympic trials in Northern NSW and we saw some of our club players really stand up during those matches and they’re now on Tim Walsh’s radar ahead of the 2021 Olympics.
“This weekend our Youth Boys will have the opportunity to play in front of Walsh and Aussie Sevens captain Nick Malouf, a great chance for them to impress and put the names forward for Walsh’s post-Olympic plans.”
For the QAS Women’s team, this tournament will be crucial as Australian Women’s head coach John Maneti continues to prepare his side for their Gold Medal defence in Tokyo later this year.
“Thanks to the QAS, Queensland has been a breeding ground for Women’s Sevens talent, and we have the next crop of players knocking on the door and putting their hands up for selection,” said Tayler.
“As recently as last year we had girls contracted to the Australian Sevens set up and this weekend provides our players with another chance to impress the Australian coaches before they finalise their squad for the Olympics.”
The tournament will be live streamed via the Rugby Xplorer app.
