Sevens stars in NZ tourney

Three Cook Islands International rugby sevens stars will take part in this weekend’s New Zealand Pub Charity rugby sevens tournament in Queenstown.

Former national squad captain Adam Vardy and big scoring machine Ashley Drake will once again play for Horowhenua against Waikato, Otago and North Otago in pool A. Fellow national representative and prolific try scorer Nathan Robinson will don the red and black jersey of Canterbury for the first time.

Canterbury is in pool B where they will play Bay of Plenty, Manawatu and Auckland.

Cook Islands rugby sevens national coach Ramsey Tomokino is expected to name the national squad next week.

A core training squad of 10 local based players has been doing the hard yards over the past three months with the hopes of being named in the national squad for the Wellington (February 4-5) and Adelaide (April 2-3) leg of the IRB Sevens circuit.

It is also expected that the squad to represent the country at the Adelaide tournament will be a predominately local based team as a reward for the players who’ve been slogging it out in training under the guidance of trainer Keith Roberts.