While New Zealand’s Super Rugby players are preparing to return to their teams on Monday before a domestic competition starts next month, the country’s elite female players are concerned at a lack of clarity on whether they are to play at all this season.
Most cross-border and domestic club rugby competitions have been suspended since March, as countries implemented travel bans and imposed strict health protocols as they battled the COVID-19 pandemic.
New Zealand Rugby (NZR) this week said that a new domestic competition involving its five Super Rugby teams would start on June 13, after the government loosened some of the country’s lockdown restrictions.
However, elite female players have started to voice concern over a lack of information from the governing body about whether their own domestic provincial competition, or the women’s national 15s and sevens teams, are to play this year.
“Communication hasn’t filtered down a lot at the moment, and I think that’s where that frustration is,” Blacks Ferns sevens captain Sarah Hirini told Newstalk ZB yesterday.
“We don’t know about our World Series tournament, we don’t know about the borders being opened up, we don’t even know when we can come back to see the rest of our teammates, even in level 2, so that’s probably the most challenging thing at the moment,” Hirini said.
World Rugby postponed both of the men’s and women’s global sevens circuits in March, while on Friday the organization postponed all Test matches scheduled for July.
The women’s world champion Black Ferns were due to play the US on July 18 at the Otago Regional Stadium in Dunedin, New Zealand, ahead of the All Blacks-Scotland clash.
The NZR has cancelled this year’s lower-tier provincial men’s competitions to cut costs, although the top-tier men’s and women’s provincial competitions are still set to be held.
However, several provincial women’s players have voiced concerns that their competition could also be a victim of cost-cutting.
NZR chief executive Mark Robinson said work was being done to ensure that the women’s provincial competition and internationals would be played this year.
“It’s simply a case of trying to find the resources,” Robinson told Newstalk ZB.
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