Black Ferns will have to decide on playing Fifteens or Sevens Album
With the 3 match Fifteens Test series against England in London this year clashing with the first round of the IRB Seven’s World Series in Dubai in December a number of leading Black Ferns players will have to decide on whether Fifteens or Sevens is their priority.
To both teams, winning these matches is very important as with the Black Ferns losing two and drawing the third of the 3 test series against England last year and the New Zealand Seven’s losing the Seven’s Rugby World Cup Final to Australia in 2009 and not competing in the IRB sanctioned Sevens Tournaments in Dubai, Hong Kong and London this season where all the other top Women’s rugby nations competed, it is going to need victory in both forms of the game to restore New Zealand as the number one Women’s rugby nation in the world.
There are several present Black Ferns players who would also be automatic choices for the New Zealand Women’s Sevens team and both coaches Sean Horan (New Zealand Sevens ) and Grant Hansen (Black Ferns ) will be wanting them to be in their teams. With neither team going to have all their first choices available winning these key series will be much harder. It could be said England faces the same problem but they have over 154,000 teenage and adult players compared with New Zealand’s 4,400 so facing this issue is a lot easier for England especially with them winning the recent Hong Kong Sevens and favourite to win the London Seven’s with a different team than won the Six Nations Tournament in Europe for the seventh straight year .
With New Zealand Women’s rugby players being amateurs the NZRU will not have the same influence over their choice as they do in the Men’s game, where they all are professional players contracted to the NZRU so the decision of the Black Ferns will be a personal one. The decision the top players face is not an easy one as with the Seven’s Rugby World Cup being held in Russia in June 2013 Sean Horan will be keen to pick a team to play at Dubai in December and Wellington Sevens in February as a lead in to the June Seven’s World Cup.
With the Fifteens Test Matches and Seven’s World Series now becoming annual events the present Black Ferns will have to make a decision on what form of the game is their first choice and this is likely to be a long term choice.
With this clash, the TID Camps being held throughout New Zealand have gained even more importance to identify and develop quickly the young players throughout the country to fill the gaps which will appear in both teams with quality players with the aim of achieving what the Men have achieved in being the leading team in the world in both forms of the game.
