The TuksWomensRugby 7s side will again be up against the best over the weekend when they compete in the Stanislas Sevens Tournament in Nancy, France.

Six of the teams who are competing are national teams. Not that it really fazes the Tuks players. Last week during the Centrale Sevens in Paris they managed to beat Finland and Ukraine and forced Belgium to a draw. Tuks was slightly unlucky to lose to Portugal in the plate-final. 

At the conclusion of the tournament, Libbie Janse van Rensburg (Tuks captain) received the Player of the Tournament Award which proved that the Tuks players were able to hold their own against their more experienced international rivals. 

Riaan van der Merwe (coach) is confident that his team will give an even better account of themselves this time around as his players are more used to the high intensity of play.  

“In South Africa, women’s rugby tends to be more physical. In Europe, the focus is not just on physical strength. When on the attack the players execute their moves at a much faster pace. 

“I am still of the opinion that we could have been placed better than the sixth position in Paris. In the game against Portugal, the referee decided on four occasions that we had passed the ball forward while being on the attack with an open try-line. If only one of those moves were allowed to continue we might have scored a winning try which would have meant that we could have finished as one of the top four teams in the tournament.” 

Van der Merwe was impressed with how Janse van Rensburg and Kemi Baloyi played in Paris. He also reckons that Xandrea Breitenbach is a future star in the making. She has only seriously been playing rugby for about two months. She scored her first “international” try against the Ukraine. 

“In preparation for this weekend’s tournament, our focus over the last few days was on getting the players to improve their support play as well as playing slightly deeper.”  ​Nadine Roos, who also plays for the Springbok Sevens side, said it is going to be important over the weekend to limit making small little mistakes as in the end, it could mean the difference between winning and losing. 

“We also got to work on improving our ball retention during our games. One of the mistakes we made in Paris was thinking that we will end up playing in the Cup final. You cannot afford to do so in international tournaments. We got to take it game for game.

“Overall I am excited about how we played in Paris. The important thing is that we proved to ourselves that we are good enough to be competitive at this level.”