Six women to be selected for Super W teams

Six players will be selected for scholarships to Super W teams after the week-long Oceania programme funded by PacificAus Sports and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

The Oceania Rugby women’s combine team with rugby players from Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea are in Suva this week for training and a game against Fijiana development at Albert Park on Friday.

Fiji is excluded from the selection as the Fijiana Drua are already part of the Super W competition. According to International Partnership officer Koli Sewabu, Brumies, Rebels and Western Force will take the players on board depending on their position requirement.

The programme started last year and the agreement continues until June next year.

“This is to identify the best athletes from the region, specifically Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea and to bring them into the high performance daily training environment, get them exposed,” Sewabu said.

“At the end of this week six players will be selected after a scrimmaging session with the Fijiana development squad on Friday.”

Brumbies Super W head coach Scott Fava, Claudia Bell general manager High Performance for Western Force, Jason Rodgers head coach for Melbourne Rebels Super W and former national sevens head coach Gareth Baber are among the coaching staff.

“They will observe the women on and off the field; look at how they carry themselves, discipline and how they hold themselves up in terms of what is outside of the field looks like,” he said.

“The objective is to get them exposed to Super W programmes so they take that experience back to Samoa, Tonga and PNG and hopefully strengthen their national teams.

“Not only that they can go and share that knowledge to their clubs and be agents of change in growing women’s rugby in their countries.” The women were selected from the Oceania Women’s championship.

Feedback: sereana.salalo@fijisun.com.fj