Mumps and bumps for women’s sevens team

New Zealand women’s sevens player Ruby Tui remains in hospital after contracting the mumps.

The 26-year-old has been suffering from the viral disease for a few days on the Sunshine Coast, where the team has been in camp for the past week.

New Zealand’s chef de mission Rob Waddell said no other women’s team member had caught the mumps but Tui was still in isolation.

‘‘There is an athlete [Tui] who has been ill and has been transferred to a hospital on the Sunshine Coast,’’ Waddell said at a press conference on the Gold Coast alongside the men’s team yesterday.

‘‘It’s a situation we continue to monitor closely, she’s in a stable condition and our medical staff are up there and doing their best to ensure her wellbeing.’’

She has yet to be replaced in the squad and may still be able to line up for the team when their tournament starts on April 13.

The team plan to remain on the Sunshine Coast until Sunday, while the men’s team arrived in the athletes’ village on the Gold Coast over the weekend.

In addition to Tui, the women’s team lost Kat Whata-simpkins to a leg injury. The losses weren’t limited to the women, with the men’s team seeing Ngarohi Mcgarvey Black pick up an ankle injury, before travelling reserve Caleb Clarke got appendicitis and had to have surgery to have his appendix removed.

Etene Nanai-seturo joined the team to replace both, while an announcement on the new travelling reserve would be made this weekend after the development team play in the Hong Kong Sevens.

Men’s coach Clark Laidlaw said it had been a long week for both teams.

‘‘It’s definitely been interesting since we landed in Australia last week, but that’s rugby, it’s a contact sport, injuries are part of it, and illnesses are part of life.’’

Laidlaw could relate to what the players who suffered the injuries and illness were going through.

‘‘It’s my first Comm Games as a coach, I got injured in 2002 in Manchester as a player, so I know what it’s like for those players to miss out, that was five days before we played, it was bloody tough.’’

With no quarterfinals, the men’s team have to win their pool to make the semifinals. They take on Canada, Zambia and Kenya in pool play, with the latter the toughest given they have reached a cup semifinal and final in their

last two tournaments in the world series.

New Zealand has never finished worse than silver in five Commonwealth Games tournaments, with four golds, but times have changed. New Zealand won 12 of the first 15 World Rugby Sevens Series up until 2014, but haven’t won it since and won just one game at the 2016 Rio Olympics, losing to Japan in their first pool match.

The women need to finish top two in their pool to make the semifinals.