Welcome Eltham Girls 7’s Team!
On Saturday, Eltham RUFC kindly hosted our Kiwi Hawthorn girls 7’s and Racing girls 7’s as we embarked on our “traveling roadshow” for the coming weeks, to engage other clubs and more girls to participate in girls rugby. On Saturday we welcomed the Eltham girls 7’s team to our growing group of Viva 7’s girls teams and it was a great occasion for the girls and their families. To summarise the day, “they don’t want to get off the field” was the response from the Eltham coach at the final whistle, so guess what? We went again!
We started off the session by quickly brushing up on the Viva 7’s rules and then went straight into some warms ups and drills. Justin soon had the girls fine tuning their catch-pass skills and soon enough we could see that our newest girl’s team was good to go!
First up, our girls lined up against Eltham and both teams found their feet early on and traded some great try’s. The Eltham girls well and truly hit the ground running…and running…..and stepping….and passing often causing our seasoned vets (average age 9y/o) to rethink their game plan and go back to basics. They realigned their defence (spread out!) and then it was good to see some structure building. It was very impressive watching how quickly the Eltham girls picked up this format of rugby. It was also hard to tell if they were actually taking it seriously given all of the smiles going around! One thing for sure was that they were having a lot of fun, so objective #1….tick…
Next up our girls faced old friends Racing and it was business as usual as they battled it out on the field. They’ve gotten to know each other well over the season and it was great to see them running around on a different rugby ground and enjoying the change of scenery.
The final game saw Eltham take on Racing while our girls moved straight across to the next pitch to practice their on-field cartwheels! The moment wasn’t lost on us as we reflected on what our girls have achieved in a few short months (although the girls don’t reflect on it too much!), gaining interest and now participation from other girls from other clubs.
By the end of Game 3, the Eltham girls had competed really well with Racing and showed us that they may well be the ones to keep up with in the future. At the final whistle it was clear that most of the tanks were running on empty but there was still a desire to keep playing. So after a show of hands we agreed to play another half, swapping jerseys amongst girls to mix it up and the trio of teams played until the tanks were finally emptied!
After the final game we all lined up for team photos and thanked Eltham for hosting us. Eltham’s brand new playing group did their club proud and we were delighted to see how much enjoyment they had. We have no doubt that they will go on to create a special part of Eltham RUFC’s history and continue to work with us and other clubs to drive the girls and womens game forward in Victoria.
Thanks again to Eltham, Racing and of course our own girls and their families. We appreciate that this time of the year is a juggling act with finals of basketball, netball, soccer etc. so finding the optimum time to schedule matches can be challenging….but you have to love the challenge!
Next week we will be taking the girl’s game to Melbourne RUFC to line up against the fantastical Unicorns… details will be confirmed over the coming days.
Finally, if you haven’t booked your tickets yet for the San Fransisco World Cup 7’s next year, where our very own Aussie girls will be competing, then you need to hurry! Plenty of time to save up. And just in case…….throw in the kid’s rugby gear. As the girls would say, “find a way to make it happen, instead of a reason for it not to happen” 🙂
Kiwi Hawthorn Junior Rugby 