Luncheon honours women’s growth
A PLETHORA of drawcard figures from the men and women’s rugby world will descend on the Gold Coast this week to support the region’s next generation of stars.
Bond University have gone all out in attracting a high-profile crowd for the Gold Coast Rugby Lunch, the event’s first rendition since changing hands from Wallabies great Greg Cornelsen.
The initiative has long backed grassroots rugby and this year will aid Bond’s Pathway to Premier program, providing great opportunities and coaching expertise for the Coast’s rising talent.
Cornelsen, famous for his four-try haul against the All Blacks, will be joined at The Star Gold Coast on Friday by current and former Wallabies players including James Slipper, Quade Cooper, Scott Higginbotham, Elton Flatley, Joe Roff and Tony Shaw.
Ex-All Blacks try-scoring machine Stu Wilson will be another familiar face in The Pavilion Ballroom.
Crucially, for the first time, the event formerly known as Corney’s Gentleman’s Lunch will celebrate the booming women’s presence in rugby.
Trailblazer Selena Tranter will be among 40 women in attendance. “I did attend a number of years ago, I was the only female amongst a thousand-odd men,” she said.
“I was actually the first woman on the board of the Queensland Country Rugby Union who had a table at the event and they were like oh come along … and yeah I turned up and I was it (laughs).”
Tranter, who plays both union and league on the Gold Coast, said she was enormously proud of the way women’s rugby – in particular sevens – has progressed.
“A lot of those girls, Shannon Parry who is captain of the sevens (and Wallaroos) team, she used to come along to our club trainings before she was even old enough to play,” she said.
“To see her now be referred to as one of the veterans of the Aussie team makes me feel quite old but at the same time it’s just amazing to think that in that short space of time, how far it has come.”
Slipper added: “Gone are the days where it is only a men’s club. Women have got a big part to play, they are a big part of our rugby community”.
The prop is eager to give back to the sport that has served him well and revealed he is on the cusp of starting running again after rupturing an achilles tendon in March.
GONE ARE THE DAYS WHERE IT IS ONLY A MEN’S CLUB JAMES SLIPPER