JESS BOUND F OR SEVENS HEAVEN

TOWNSVILLE rugby sevens player Jess Schwartz knows never to give up on her sporting dreams.

Schwartz will get to the chance to play at an international level next month when she travels to Thailand with the Central Queensland Dingoes. The Dingoes will compete in the Bangkok International Sevens tournament along with the RBSC Rugby Tens before playing a friendly against the Thai national women’s team.

Schwartz played indoor soccer for a decade before she followed her husband, Jako, to rugby where she said she found the tackling aspect a better fit.

She plays club rugby with JCU, represented the Townsville Brolgas in North Queensland Country Championships, and also coaches junior girls with the Western Suburbs Dragons.

But Schwartz admitted she never expected her switch to rugby would lead to her playing in an international tournament.

“Even as a kid I wanted to play North Queensland soccer and I never got that chance and now come my 30s and I’m playing international rugby,” she said.

“It’s one of those things too that when I was in my 20s there was no rugby around for women anyway so that’s come a long way.

“Sevens is hard work, but it’s so fun when you pinch a ball and then make a break or you do that fend.”

Schwartz hasn’t been able to train with her Dingoes teammates, but they’ll take the field together as the defending champions at this weekend’s Townsville Festival of Sevens which she hoped would also be good practice for Thailand.

“I wasn’t part of a local team in Townsville and they needed extra players so I just jumped in the jersey and ran on the paddock and we won the comp,” she said.

Schwartz also hopes to run a rugby clinic at an orphanage while in Thailand and has set up a Go Fund Me page at gofundme. com/ more- t han- j ust - r ugby- i nthailand.