Womens World Cup hopefuls under pressure to perform at Ellis Park

May 30 • General News, International • 2260 Views • Comments Off on Womens World Cup hopefuls under pressure to perform at Ellis Park

South Africa’s Women’s Rugby World Cup hopefuls will be under pressure to deliver quality performances on Saturday when the national training squad and the Women’s Interprovincial XV take to the field at Ellis Park in the final warm-up match before the World Cup squad is finalised.

The South African Rugby Union and the other 11 participating World Cup nations have to submit their 26-member World Cup squads to the International Rugby Board (IRB) in mid-June, meaning this match will mark the last opportunity for the players to prove their worth in a match situation before the squad announcement.

The IRB Women’s Rugby World Cup will be hosted in France from August 1 to 17, 2014.

Adding to the significance of the clash, a number of players who are in contention for World Cup places have been named in the Women’s Interprovincial XV side, and they will be determined to be noticed against the Springbok Women’s training squad.

Both teams assembled in Johannesburg on Friday morning to prepare for Saturday’s match, with the day’s activities featuring a video session followed by a field training session at the Johannesburg Stadium.

The national training squad’s sessions were led by Springbok Women’s head coach Lawrence Sephaka, his assistant coach Renfred Dazel and SARU Mobi-Unit coach Louis Koen.
The Women’s Interprovincial XV, meanwhile, trained with former Springbok Kaya Molatana and Blue Bulls women’s head coach Hennie Pieterse.
“This is a very important match not only for us as a team, but also for the individuals who have hopes of representing South Africa at the Women’s Rugby World Cup,” said Sephaka.

“From a team perspective it is important that we deliver a quality performance, as the World Cup begins in two months, so there is not much time left for the team to peak in their performance. And for the individuals, there are many more than 26 players across the two teams that are in contention for places in the World Cup squad, so they need to prove that they deserve to be in the mix when we finalise the squad.

“With several World Cup hopefuls in the Women’s Interprovincial XV team, I believe it will be a good contest,” said the coach. “I am also excited to see how the Springbok Women Sevens players fit in and perform in the match, as this will be their first game with the 15-a-side players following several months of playing on the Sevens circuit.”

The Springbok Women’s next assignment will be a World Cup warm-up tour to London and France from June 25 to July 5 which will feature two matches against the Nomads and one against World Cup hosts and pool contenders, France, respectively. The team will assemble in Pretoria on June 18 to prepare for this tour.