2014 a year of opportunity for rugby

This will be a year of great opportunity for national rugby 7s and 15s squad.

The busy rugby year for the national squads will kick off in March, with the IRB Hong Kong 7s tournament running from March 22 to 24.

A top two finish for the Cook Islands in its division at the Hong Kong 7s will mean a trio to the IRB London 7s in May 2014 and a chance to qualify for the 2015-16 IRB World 7s Series Circuit.

Further down the line, the Cook Islands national 7s squad will be heading to Scotland for the Commonwealth Games set for late July – an amazing global opportunity for local players to represent the Cooks on the world stage.

In September the Cooks 7s squad will take part in the Oceania 7s Tournament.

A 7s squad of 29 players has been selected with an additional squad of 10 standby players who fill in when players drop out due to injury and unavailability.

The standby team also includes some exciting under 19 development players.

The travelling squad of 12 players to attend the Hong Kong 7s, Commonwealth Games, PNG and Gold Coast tournaments will be selected from this squad.

Leading the Cook Islands rugby sevens squad and campaign for 2014 will be seasoned national representatives Koiatu Koiatu and Ash Drake.

The pair has been named in the wider Cook Islands sevens team for the busy 2014 year of rugby.

The squad will now be going through testing and fitness based training over the next two months with a possible camp in Brisbane at the end of January before the final 12 man squad for Hong Kong comes together in late March.

The wider squad includes three home based players including Teina Savage from the Tupapa Panthers club as well as exciting Aitutaki talents Hugh Henry and Teu Paerau.

Remaining wider squad members are: (New Zealand) Simon Marcel, Greg Mullany, Royce Teinakore, Ash Drake, Vernon Holden, Matt Henry, Francis Smith, Reece Joyce, Chay Raui, James Raea, Junior Kiria, Harvard Ioane, (Australia) Dexter Moroney, Joseph Kamana, Louis Makuare, Aaron Enoka, Tim Matenga, Ronnie Maui, James Johnston, Poutatau Berryman, Harry Berryman, Koiatu Koiatu, Sean Fletcher, Josh Petero, George Pamatatau and Justin Marsters.

The team is under the guidance of head coach Chad Tuoro and manager Cam Kilgour.

Meanwhile in the rugby 15s campaign, a squad will be selected in late April, with a squad of 30 players to be chosen and moved to a camp in mid-June.

The team’s major focus is the one-off test game against Fiji in Suva – a Rugby World Cup Qualifier match which has inspired the campaign slogan of – ‘One Win – One Dream’.

Two warm-up matches before the Fiji tour will take place, with one confirmed for Wednesday June 18 against the Auckland Blues development squad and another still to be confirmed before the squad gets smaller and 25 players will be taken to Fiji for a week before the one-off test on Saturday June 28.

The 15s squad is led by head coach Barry George, assistant coach Brett Semmons and manager Cam Kilgour.