Australian Youth Teams Announced for NZ Tour

Dec 13 • General News • 1494 Views • Comments Off on Australian Youth Teams Announced for NZ Tour

Following last weekend’s National Youth Sevens Championships in Perth, an under 18s Australian Boys and an under 18s Australian Girls team will travel to New Zealand tomorrow to compete in the World School Sevens Tournament at Sacred Heart College in Auckland this weekend.

The World School Sevens Youth Boys competition will include six teams – New Zealand, Australia, Samoa, NZ Fijians, Cook Islands and NZ Barbarians – while the Youth Girls team will play the New Zealand Condors, New Zealand Wasps and Samoa.

The New Zealand trip will also include practice matches at Rifles Rugby Club and will offer Australia’s stars of the future a chance to impress coaches before next year’s Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas.

Headlining the teams will be Demi Hayes, Hannah Southwell and Dylan Pietsch who are already training full-time with the Australian Sevens squads.

Isaac Lucas, 2016 QLD Schoolboy Player of the Year, also looks set to impress for the Youth Boys, following in the footsteps of his older brothers Tom, Matt and Ben who have all earned starts in the Australian Sevens jersey.

ARU Pathway Services Manager of Rugby Sevens, Dale Roberson said: “We were really impressed with the standard of competition at the recent National Youth Sevens Championships in Perth, and the boys and girls selected for this tour should be immensely proud of their achievements already.”

“We are going away with a plan to expose younger players to international competition. This tournament will be an important milestone for many of them as they work towards representing Australia at the Youth Commonwealth Games, Youth Olympics and then potentially progressing to higher honours with the national teams.”

AUSTRALIAN YOUTH GIRLS TEAM
Millie Boyle, NSW
Claudia Obst, NSW
Brydie Parker, NSW
Lily Dick, QLD
Kiara Taylor, QLD
Liz De Lange, QLD
Nat Crow, NSW
Page McGregor, NSW
Demi Hayes, QLD
Hannah Southwell, NSW
Tiarna Molloy, NSW
Abby Holmes, NSW
Katie Curtis, QLD

AUSTRALIAN YOUTH BOYS TEAM
Tayn Atkins, ACT
Caleb Malisauskas, ACT
James Armstrong, NSW
Dylan Pietsch, NSW
Connor Size, NSW
Matthew McTaggart, NSW
Will Terry, NSW
Nic Donghi, VIC
Oisin Clarken, VIC
Henricus Van Der Heyden, WA
Isaac Lucas, QLD
Samuel Wallis, QLD
Tate McDermott, QLD