Wellington Pride looking forward to Women’s NPC season

Saturday 6 August promises to be a busy day for Wellington rugby. Not only is it finals day for the Bucqui Jubilee Cup and Hardham Cup competitions and a possible Investec Super Rugby final for the Hurricanes that evening, it's the day the Wellington Pride kick off their Women's NPC campaign away against the Auckland Storm.

This coming weekend sees the finals of the Wellington Women's club competition, with Wainuiomata and Oriental-Rongotai squaring off for the Victoria Tavern Trophy and Hutt Old Boys Marist and Marist St Pat's meeting for Division 2 honours. Following the finals, leading players will turn their attention to the representative season.

Wellington Pride Head Coach James Porter explained where the preparations are currently at.

"We recently launched the Pride season with a women's Gala Day at the Petone Rec and a lunch with all 10 teams at the nearby Petone clubrooms, where we outlined the season ahead, identified the new pathways and accepted nominations for the pre-season programme which is now in its fourth week, "he said.

"We have two more weeks of pre-season, which will finish with a trial match, and then a couple of pre-season matches. We are going to hold a camp before the first match against Auckland to finalise our squad."

Wellington U18 and Development training squads have been training hard, and will play some games later this year.

"The U18s is a great age group for us to focus on as we will create interest in the game at school, and the development squad is vital for the Pride as it keeps another 25 girls playing good quality rugby as the Farah Palmer Cup is running.

"There are some matches in the pipeline for both squads so we are extremely excited about what the union are offering here."

Porter said that the club competition has been followed closely.

"We also have a very good relationship with all our coaches so we have conversations around players and their progress. Our clubs are very good at sharing information with us and always open for discussions so we are confident we will get the players we need.

"Obviously we are extremely excited to have OBU [beaten semi-finalists last weekend] and Wainuiomata [hosting the final this Saturday] pushing the traditional big guns this season and that's a reflection of the effort and the improvements in the game locally. Coaches and players are really stepping up so that's exciting to see."

He explained that there are a number of players who have put themselves in the reckoning for all three Pride squads.

"The U18s in particular is an exciting group of players and Findlay Sania and his coaching staff are looking forward to working with the future Pride players. Monica Tagoai, Brooke Tauaneai, Ayesha Leti Iiga and Alicia Print are players who are around that age bracket who are pushing for Pride spots."

Porter said that the majority of the squad that finished runners-up to Auckland last season is back.

"Obviously the 2015 squad set a great benchmark for the Pride and a standard that will hopefully continue.

"Noeleen Nonu is currently playing overseas and has been in contact with us and Aimee Sutorius is currently in the US working in rugby so we are well aware of where everyone is. But the 2016 squad will be selected on merit and performance during the 2016 club season."

Wellington recently had six players involved with the New Zealand Sevens programme and 15 attend the recent Black Ferns trial.

It's straight into the fire against defending champions Auckland in their Farah Palmer Cup opener on 6 August.

Last year the Pride missed out 9-39 to Auckland in the final, after stunning Counties Manukau 29-23 the week before in their home semi-final, centre Georgia Daals scoring a runway try on the hooter.

Daals was Wellington's leading try-scorer in last year's Women's NPC with seven, behind Auckland's Mele Hufanga with 16 and three players with nine. Of the goal-kickers Pride first five-eighth Lizzie Goulden was the leading points scorer with 74 points.

This year's Women's NPC starts earlier than usual and finishes earlier owing to the Black Ferns playing a two-Test series against the Australian Wallaroos in October and then overseas internationals against England, Canada and Ireland in November.

The Wellington Pride matches at a glance:

· 6 August v Auckland (away)

· 20 August v Waikato (home)

· 27 August v Manawatu (away)

· 3 September v Otago (home)

· 9 September v Counties Manukau (away)

· 17 September v Bay of Plenty (home)

· 24 September Semi-finals TBC

· 1 October Final TBC