Habana and Carter surprise Pirates Women’s Rugby Club
GREENSIDE – Mastercard is sponsoring the Pirates Women's Rugby Club to participate in the 50th Dubai Rugby 7s Invitational Tournament from 5-7 December.
In celebration of Women’s Month, Mastercard treated the Pirates Women’s Rugby Club in Greenside to a surprise talk and field coaching session with Rugby World Cup 2019 ambassadors Bryan Habana and Dan Carter.
The unsuspecting women were watching a Dan Carter tutorial video as part of their usual training session when, one of the top test try scorers, Habana and New Zealand star and three-time winner of the prestigious World Rugby Player of the Year, Carter walked into their change room.
Pirates Women’s Rugby Club coach Chanel Alberts said, “The team was caught completely off guard and immediately started screaming and cheering when they saw their heroes in the flesh.”
Habana and Carter shared their personal experiences, provided encouraging and motivational tips on the importance of club rugby and coached them on key plays to give the team an advantage on the field.
The surprise forms part of Mastercard’s Start Something Priceless campaign. It demonstrates how rugby empowers women players at a grass-roots level and confronts bias to turn adversity into strength.
Senior vice president of marketing and communications, Middle East and Africa at Mastercard Beatrice Cornacchia said,
“Rugby is a passion that has the power to transcend boundaries and bring us together as a nation, as proud fans and as players of a sport.”
Alberts began the Pirates Women’s Rugby Club in 2017 in a bid to make rugby more inclusive for players from different backgrounds as well as make the women’s game more professional and accessible to South African fans. The team recently won the Jozi Women’s League Final.
Alberts said, “As a historically male-dominated contact sport, women have until recently not considered rugby as a career option. But the benefits of the organised game are hugely beneficial for women, who have throughout history felt disempowered due to their gender. Rugby is extremely empowering and liberating for women as it gives you the freedom to be yourself and that’s powerful.”
According to World Rugby, women’s rugby is one of the fastest-growing team sports in the world with more than 2.7 million women and girls playing the game.
Habana said, “The growth of women’s rugby globally has been absolutely phenomenal. The beauty of rugby is that if we were all the same, it would be an unbelievably boring sport.”
Mastercard is sponsoring the Pirates Women’s Rugby Club to participate for the first time in the 50th Dubai Rugby 7s Invitational Tournament from 5 to 7 December. The club was invited to participate in the event in the past but was unable to do so due to lack of funding.
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