Canada’s Senior Women’s 15s team wraps up intensive Top-40 camp on Vancouver Island

April 21, 2022 (Langford, BC) - Canada’s Senior Women’s 15s program wrapped up an intensive, weeklong camp on Vancouver Island last week. The camp brought together the top rugby players from across Canada, with each athlete vying for a roster spot in this year’s Pacific Four, Summer Tests and World Cup roster.

Camp saw the return of veteran player Cindy Nelles, who has not been able to leave New Zealand (where she resides) since 2019 due to Covid travel regulations. Additionally stand out player Taylor (Black) Perry was back in action after a successful injury rehabilitation. Attending their first Senior Top 40 Camp was Laval’s Corinne Frechette and U20 program graduate Maya Montiel.

Following individual camps in Western and Eastern Canada, as well as an overseas camp in France, players were able to come together as one group on Vancouver Island for the first time since last Fall, allowing the group to gel continue to build both on and off the pitch. The camp also presented a unique opportunity to include training opportunities with the National Senior Womens Sevens team and Maple Leaf program atheltes. This alignment of Womens National Team athletes and coaching staff continues to foster overall development of both Senior Programs depth charts.

“I’ve been most excited to get back together with this group of girls and coaching staff,” said Sophie de Goede, one of Canada’s top performers in recent test matches. “We haven’t been together since Fall Tour in November so we had a bit of a hiatus and have been training in our individual groups or overseas—it’s really nice to be back together and kind of get in step with each other and look at our attack structures and actually play at a high pace alongside our teammates.” Canadian Co-captain and veteran Laura Russell also shared insight into the Top-40 camp and the role it plays ahead of the Women’s Team upcoming competitions.

“We’ve had a few small camps leading into this, this is our bigger camp just to get our basics going into PAC4 (Pacific Four), we’re six months out from the World Cup so we’re just starting to really focus on and tweak and get ready to build in the six months to World Cup.”

The camp moved across various Southern Vancouver Island locations and even featured a bout of snowfall during a stop in Shawnigan Lake. The women’s group also took the opportunity to head to Vancouver to catch Sunday’s 2022 HSBC Canada Sevens action at BC Place. The World Rugby Pacific Four Series launched in 2021. The competition features Australia, Canada, New Zealand and USA. Rugby World Cup is one of the world’s most popular sport’s brands, the pinnacle 15s event in men’s and women’s rugby union, held every four years and contested by the best international teams in the world. The tournament runs October 8 until November 12, 2022.