Thursday, January 2, 2014

Our First Pair of Aussie Sisters: The Gemmells

As is often the case rugby, there has been a lot of fluidity with this team and roster changes galore. In the last few hours two players have had to drop out due to injuries but the rugby community (and rugby gods) saved the day. A week ago one of my former Chicago North Shore buddies contacted me about 2 of her Boston Belles teammates looking for a side JUST after a different North Shore teammate mentioned that I should get in touch with her. THEN it turns out one of the Belles was the lovely British Anne Venner - one of my Beavers teammates from 2 years ago.

(note - all these roster/logistics changes, a massive cold/cough, and a new job/pending move to Chicago have kept me from posting as frequently as I'd like. Stay tuned when I have a moment to breathe and write more! Dealing with 4 national unions to clear all our players permission to tour has been quite the effort.)

The same sort of network came into play 2 weeks ago when the LVI director, Jon Hinkin, contacted me to let me know he had 4 representational side Australians looking for a team to play with. I quickly got on email with their club contacts and, because we had some other Stars whom were initially interested but failed to pay deposts/respond to emails, had spaces open for them. The next day a New Zealander from Texas contacted me via the amazing Wendy Young of Your Scrumhalf Connection (whom I've played against when she was with the Austin Valkyries and also had as an amazing ref. She coaches University of Texas and one of our current Stars, Kristen Karsten, plays) emailed me about the very same players. It's definite rugby karma and the bonus of this magical network that's been cultivated over the years!

The Stars are please to have 2 sets of sisters from Australia join our rosters - the first are Krystle and Liz Gemmell who are taking a big tour of the US hitting up New York and Los Angeles prior to joining us in Las Vegas:

My name is Liz Gemmell and my sister is Krystle Gemmell; we live in Australia however we are proud natives of New Zealand.  We come from a sporty family who love to watch and play rugby. We started playing rugby at a young age.  

We wanted to play at the Vegas Sevens for the experience and enjoyment of the game.  We originally were coming over with our own team, but since our team is no longer able to play we were fortunate enough to be introduced to Liz E.  Liz has welcomed us into the Stars Rugby Team.   We are now even more excited that we will be experiencing this awesome event with a bunch of American/Canadian ladies.  We are super excited and can’t wait to meet the team. BRING ON LAS VEGAS 7s!

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