A Little Bit of Catch Up

It's been nearly 2 weeks since our last post and what a busy two weeks it has been. We'll go into more details on each of the following with regular posting to resume tomorrow:

*Canada's Women's 7s National Team claimed the 16th spot for Central Coast 7s. Our Stars Women will be competing in a field of 4 nationals teams (Australia, Canada, Fiji, Brazil), 2 National Champions (ACT Brumbies of Australia and RuGirl 7s of Japan), the last two CC7s champions (Sunnybank and Tribe 7s) and a field of other representational and developmental sides from Australia and New Zealand.

*The Men's Field for CC7s is also full with teams from Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Borneo, and Tiger Rugby from the USA in the mix.

*Our Canada Tour invites went out and we're still awaiting some final responses. Due to the increased men's opportunities between All Star City 7s, their club 15s and 7s series, developmental camps, collegiate 7s and more (injuries and family life among the other reasons), we will only take one team of men to Calgary. We retain a deep pool of women for two sides in the premier division.

*Speaking of Stars Women - FIVE of our pool players have received Women's Collegiate All American or
Women's Junior All American camp invites so far! CONGRATULATIONS to Christina Swift of Florida Atlantic University, Carly MacKinnon of Washington State University, Chi Chi Chukwueke of Georgia Tech, Kayla Rudman of Notre Dame College and Lara Gartner of Georgia Tech. Unfortunately Chi Chi is injured and will be unable to join us for Calgary.

*And speaking of Calgary, we started out fundraising efforts with another gofundme campaign here. Our aim is to raise $2000 for a Stars Rugby 7s Scholarship Fund to assist our younger players with their tour costs. Beyond that we'd like to raise $100 per player to offset tour costs through small donations. A full sponsorship package will be out on Thursday with several tiers of involvement.

*There is still a recap/thoughts on China 7s to come as well as posts about "What if the Olympics Were Now" and the iRB expanding the Women's Sevens World Series. ScrumQueens covered some of this before we could with an in-depth look at the changes in the WSWS for next season and the Olympic implications. They also have a good piece about the state of women's 7s in Latin America.

*The NRFL held a combine in Minneapolis and one of our men's pool players, Kenneth Hepburn, attended. Kenneth showed extremely well in front of several European clubs.... well enough that he may not be available for our tours. We wish him the best of luck and are still waiting for his report on the weekend.....

*We also had Ty Elkins from our men's side travel to Norway for a 7s tournament where his team took the Bowl Championships and he earned tournament MVP honors. Photos and a recap to come.

*The USA Women's 15s team traveled to Canada for a 2 game Can-Am series with our neighbors to the north. Both games ended in a loss for the Eagles and we'll have a recap as well as some thoughts on development (Canada has now reached 100 test matches as the first non-European club to do so and also has a Tri-Nations series coming up with New Zealand and Australia; the USA goes on tour to England and Wales this summer) and the impact of 7s on the outcomes of the games (Canada used their carded/centralised 7s players while ours were home in Chula Vista).

*Finally a belated congratulations to Stars Vegas 7s Elite player Amanda Divich (formerly Martin), on her recent wedding to Jacob and for their little one on the way! We're thrilled your family is expanding and will be on the lookout for rugby onesies while on tour!