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If variety is the spice of sport, the Langford-based Canadian women鈥檚 sevens team will have plenty of it.
The 24 centralized players, including four in the high school rugby academy at Belmont, are going through their paces at Westhills Stadium in preparation for a 2018 that will include the Commonwealth Games in April at Gold Coast, Australia, and World Cup in July at AT&T Park in San Francisco.
There will also be the annual World Series, which begins Nov. 30 in Dubai, with the sa国际传媒 Sevens scheduled May 12-13 at Westhills Stadium. The other World Series stops include Sydney Jan. 26-28, Kitakyushu in Japan, April 21-22, and Paris June 8-10.
鈥淚t is going to be a busy year, with the added intensity of a multi-sport [Commonwealth] Games and a World Cup,鈥� said head Canadian coach John Tait of Mill Bay.
鈥淲e feel we have a deep enough group to challenge in all these events.鈥�
Women鈥檚 rugby will make its Commonwealth Games debut. sa国际传媒 won silver at the last World Cup in 2013 in Russia, behind New Zealand, and was silver medallist last season in the World Series behind the Kiwis.
A core of nine players remains from sa国际传媒鈥檚 bronze-medallist team in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. That group includes the face-of-the-franchise and heavily-tattooed Olympic captain Jen Kish and her post-Rio successor Ghislaine Landry, who is all-time World Series leading scorer.
Olympic veterans Bianca Farella and Charity Williams, however, are injured and out until January.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a chance for some of our younger players to step up,鈥� said Tait, after practice on Tuesday.
That youth wave includes Caroline Crossley of Victoria and Maggie Banks of Shawnigan Lake School.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all about growing the depth of our group as we look long term to the 2020 [Tokyo] Olympics,鈥� Tait said.
