The Cook Islands Rugby Union has established a committee specifically tasked with exploring and ultimately setting out ways to develop rugby sevens in the Cook Islands with the aim of producing home grown talent to compete on the international stage.

The committee consists of Puai Wichman, Lara Sadaraka, Karla Eggelton and Mike Henry.

A report from this committee is expected to be tabled by the end of the 2010 rugby season.

A major driving force behind the establishment of the committee was the recent announcement of rugby sevens as an Olympic sport in 2016 to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

This is a major milestone for the sport of rugby and is sure to elevate its profile and drive much more interest from non-traditional rugby playing countries.

In fact, expect to see many more countries, some currently unknown as rugby playing countries to pour resources into rugby sevens.

Certainly the superpowers of Olympic sports such as the United States, China and Russia will be putting their full might into developing their teams in this sport, so expect these nations to dramatically improve in sevens.

Another important milestone and one of the reasons it became an Olympic sport is the fact that rugby sevens will be competed for by both men and women.

That’s right, not only is the profile of sevens going to increase, women’s sevens will also be elevated to heights yet unseen.

The announcement of rugby sevens becoming an Olympic sport unfortunately came on the back of some disappointing results last year by the Cook Islands sevens teams in both the Pacific Mini Games and the Tahiti qualifiers.

For the first time in many years, the Cook Islands did not qualify for the Wellington sevens – a sore point with CIRU vice president Puai Wichman, who decided to do something about it by offering himself for election to the executive of the rugby union earlier on this year.

And on the back of the appointment, he requested and got support from the CIRU to set up a sub committee to look specifically at sevens, and how the Cook Islands can move forward.

While the committee is still in the early stages of its report some very clear goals including developing a pathway for young men and women who may aspire for higher honours in rugby sevens and 15s, develop the infrastructure for sevens in the Cook Islands so that to encourage home grown talent and to improve the level and standard of sevens in the Cook Islands by bringing a more professional approach to all aspects of the game including refereeing, coaching, training and administration.

Wichman believes that success in sevens will have flow on effects for the game as a whole in the Cook Islands.

But he notes that as opposed to 15s, the Cooks have the ability to match it with the world’s best. “I strongly believe that we have the talent locally that can be developed into world class players,” says Wichman.

But he is under no illusion as to the challenges ahead.

“The game of sevens has changed, where once the natural playing ability of individuals made countries such as Fiji dominate the world of sevens. Now with countries pouring big money and resources into their players, countries in the South Pacific need to work harder and can no longer rely on the natural individual brilliance of their players.”

He added, “We are so far behind our cousins in the Pacific, that we must start that hard work now, or we will miss out completely”.

He used Samoa as an example of what can be done, but noted that with our limited playing numbers we need to be careful about our expectations.

Still Wichman is adamant that there is no point in aiming for the moon, when you can aim for the sun. And that’s exactly what the CIRU plans to do.