Black Ferns Sevens join party in Hamilton

The Black Ferns Sevens team will play in a tournament in New Zealand for the first time, when they take the field at the same time as the men’s event in Hamilton next year.

New Zealand Rugby yesterday announced a ‘Fast Four’ exhibition event, which will see the hosts play England, France and China during the men’s World Rugby Sevens Series at FMG Stadium Waikato on January 26-27.

Black Ferns Sevens stars Sarah Goss, Portia Woodman and Kelly Brazier unveiled the news at Hamilton Girls High School, where deputy head girl and sports captain Jazmin Hotham is already a nationally contracted sevens player.

While the tournament won’t be part of the women’s World Series, this invitational event is a start in getting to that point. Captain Goss admitted this event had come somewhat quicker than what she had expected.

‘‘For us as players, we obviously only worry about playing, and then New Zealand Rugby do everything that they possibly can. Obviously they’ve now got teams to play, it’s pretty hard for other teams and expensive to fly over here.

Goss said if and when they could eventually land a World Series event she hopes for it to be a combined one with the men, as opposed to a standalone.

‘‘When we play with the men on other tournaments around the world it is exciting, because the crowd’s massive and stuff like that. For us, just to be playing at home is massive. We haven’t done that in the six years we’ve had a team.’’

The six-leg World Series starts in Denver on October 20-21, before heading to Dubai in November. But following that there is a big gap until the next event in Sydney in February, so this Hamilton tournament will provide some quality lead-in play.

The format will see each team play one another in pool matches. The bottom two sides will contest the bronze final, and the top two will play for gold.

The Black Ferns Sevens, who claimed Commonwealth Games gold in April, finished second to Australia in the 2017-18 World Series, which wrapped up in June. France finished third in the series, with England eighth and China 12th.

Last month New Zealand then became back-to-back World Cup champions, with victory in the tournament in San Francisco.