Coach Anna Richards leads Hong Kong into unknown territory
Hosts handed tough draw for Women’s Sevens World Series qualifier on home turf
Hong Kong’s women sevens players will face one of their toughest challenges yet when they bid for glory on home turf in next month’s Women’s Sevens World Series qualifying event.
The International Rugby Board on Tuesday announced details of the 12-team international tournament including the pools, and the home side have been handed a difficult draw in pool C where they will face favourites Brazil and the Netherlands, and Portugal.
At the centre of the ambitious home side’s campaign is coach Anna Richards who, as a four-time winner of the Women’s Rugby World Cup with New Zealand’s Black Ferns, is no stranger to the pressures of top-level rugby.
But she acknowledges that there is a world of difference between leading New Zealand to victory in the WRWC and coaching relative minnows Hong Kong in a series qualifier.
“This will be a massive challenge. The likes of Netherlands, Brazil, France, Japan and China have all been playing on the circuit for the past year,” Richards said. “They all played well, too, so it won’t be easy for us.”
Hong Kong’s one advantage is that they will host the competition at Shek Kip Mei Stadium, however Richards believes that home support won’t lessen the enormity of the task at hand.
“The reality is if we hadn’t hosted it we wouldn’t have been able to take part in the tournament, so it’s a massive opportunity for us to get the chance to play against some great teams,” she said.
“If we can post some good results we may be invited to play in an IRB tournament, so there are plenty of incentives for us to perform well. It’ll be a very tough tournament for us, but I still think we’re going to be competitive.”
With four places up for grabs in next season’s World Series, the qualifying tournament is expected to produce some epic battles, with France, Fiji, Brazil, and the Netherlands the likely favourites to qualify, though Japan and China will also fancy their chances.
“Now that sevens is an Olympic sport everybody is putting a lot more effort and money into it,” Richards said. “Japan are really improving and China are also putting a lot of resources into the women’s game now. They’ll both be very strong in the tournament.
“Recently we have seen the Hong Kong women’s fifteens team perform exceptionally well during the Asian Four Nations, with a large compliment of sevens players on their roster. The funding and backing that sevens now has as an Olympic sport is definitely allowing more players to be up-skilled, which can only be good for our sport.”
The format of the tournament is based on three pools of four teams, with the top two from each pool progressing to the quarter-finals along with two best third-placed teams. The four winners of those quarters will progress to the semi-finals and, more importantly, will secure qualification for what will be the third season of the World Series.
The teams that qualify will join core nations New Zealand, Australia, Russia, England, Spain, USA and Canada on next year’s circuit, with one additional team invited to participate at each of the six rounds.