Top u.16 girls to make their mark

The top u.16 female rugby players in South Africa will look to make their mark in the SARU Girls u.16 Week starting on Monday June 29 at CJ Langenhoven Gymnasium in Oudtshoorn with an eye on progressing through the ranks in future as women’s rugby grows steadily worldwide.

The tournament will kick off SA’s women’s provincial season, with the SARU Women’s Interprovincial competition following from July 4 and the SARU Girls u.18 Week taking place from July 6 to 10 at Glenwood High School in Durban.

The three-day u.16 tournament, which features round robin-matches on Monday, Wednesday and Friday respectively, includes 16 teams. However, similarly to the Coca-Cola Youth Weeks, no official winner is crowned as the objective of the tournament is to develop players.

Western Province will meet the Limpopo Blue Bulls, while Border will take on Boland in the opening matches of the competition at 10:00 on Monday, while hosts SWD go up against KwaZulu-Natal in their first match.

The Golden Lions take on the Leopards in the final match of day-one at 15:00.

Talent scouts attending the tournament will select an Elite Squad that will be invited to a training camp in October where the players will be introduced to SARU’s High Performance structures. The coaches from the girls’ Youth Training Centres based at the Blue Bulls Limpopo, Blue Bulls, Border, Eastern Province, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Province rugby unions respectively will also work with the players at the camp to improve their skills.

These players will also be exposed to distant coaching to improve their rugby and positional skills, and will have access to gym and training programmes designed by the Youth Training Centre coaches.

Springbok Women’s 2014 Rugby World Cup hooker Thantaswa Macingwana, Springbok Women’s Sevens player Kirsten Conrad and several other players who have represented the South Africa u.20 team including Lusanda Dumke, Christal Williams and Faith Chauke, are among the players who graduated from this tournament.

Western Province and Eastern Province finished last year’s tournament as the top teams after advancing through the pool stages unbeaten, and they will again look to leave a lasting impression.

SARU Girls u.16 Week day-one fixtures June 29:

10:00 – Western Province vs Limpopo Blue Bulls (A Field)

10:00 – Border vs Boland (B Field)

11:00 – Eastern Province vs Pumas (A Field)

11:00 – Blue Bulls vs Griffons (B Field)