Brave effort by CI women’s sevens team

The Cook Islands women’s rugby sevens team put on a brave performance at the Oceania Women’s Sevens Championship in Fiji last week.

The Cooks faced Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa and the Solomon Islands and despite their best efforts – the local girls were only able to topple the Solomon Islands.

Against the Pacific queens of rugby sevens, Fiji, the Cooks were outclassed 36-7 but against top-seeded New Zealand the local girls held their own.

The Cooks were only down 15-0 late in the match before the Kiwi girls showed their class to eventually run out convincing winners by 27-0.

The Cooks had closely fought matches against Tonga and Samoa losing the games 15-0 and 17-5 respectively.

In their last match against the Solomon Islanders the Cook Islands team pulled out all the stops to thrash their opponents 41-0 and end their campaign on a high.

There are no further international fixtures for the Cook Islands team. Their performance highlights the need for further development of women’s rugby and to extend opportunities for local women players.

The new inter-vaka women’s rugby 10’s competition starts today and all women players are encouraged to lace up their boots and get along to the Titikaveka field for the 5.30pm match between vaka Takitumu and vaka Te Au O Tonga.