Bok Women’s 7s team’s bid to regain World Series core status boosted

With Athlone Stadium in Cape Town confirmed as host venue for the opening two rounds of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025, Springbok Women’s Sevens team head coach Renfred Dazel is ramping up plans to regain their World Series core team status for next season.

“I think with our team we started our season’s prep actually before Dubai and for the Africa Cup we had a few experienced players and then they went back to the fifteens to have training camps,” Dazel said.

“We have a few players who are in and out of the system that will only play in the first three Women’s Premier Division games and then we will get them from Monday onwards for two weeks before the Challenger.

“Then we can actually have a full squad with all our senior players that will actually boost our team for the Challenger.”

The coach stressed the importance of time on the field for his players as part of the efforts to get them to gel.

“We got the opportunity this week to play against the Rhinos Women, so this was actually a good outing and just to see where we’re at with our prep.

“We will have another outing in a week’s time just to give the girls that played fifteens also an opportunity just before the first Challenger to get a hit-out and just to work on our structure a bit.”

World Rugby announced earlier this week that Athlone Stadium will host the opening two rounds of this year’s Challenger.

The top eight placed men’s and women’s teams will progress to the third round at the Henryk Reyman’s Municipal Stadium in Krakow, Poland on April 11-12.

After which the four top ranked men’s and women’s teams will qualify for the HSBC SVNS play-off tournament in Los Angeles on May 3-4.

Dazel is taking heart from the fact that the last time SA hosted the Challenger, they were able to qualify for the World Series.

But he admits to the pressure it brings.

“Obviously when you play at home there’s always that pressure to do well and the last time we had the Challenger in Stellenbosch, it was actually good for us, we won both.

“The pressure will be there but we will focus on that first one,” he said.

“Obviously for us we need to be in the top four in order to get that spot at the LA tournament where we play the four bottom teams of the World Series, so that’s obviously the big aim.

“And when we get to LA the focus will be slightly different, but our end goal is get back onto the world circuit again.”

The first two rounds of the Challenger will replicate the competition format used for the recent HSBC SVNS Cape Town tournament in December.

This sees the four pool winners progress directly to contest the semi-finals, while second-placed teams will play for fifth to eighth places and teams finishing third in their pools will compete for ninth to twelfth positions.

The Bok Women’s Sevens are in Pool A with Czechia and Hong Kong China in the opening tournament, while Pool B features Argentina, Thailand and Mexico.

Pool C sees Belgium, Uganda and Colombia go into battle, and Poland, Samoa and Kenya make up Pool D.

Play starts at 10am and South Africa’s pool matches on Saturday, March 1, are scheduled for 3.55pm (against Hong Kong China) and 7.36pm (Czechia), with the play-offs to follow the next day.