Wellington Pride trio Daals, Kriklanova and Goulden enjoying their club rugby

Women’s rugby in Wellington continues to grow in Wellington, with 10 teams now competing in the club competition and a bunch of new players coming through the ranks to challenge for spots in the Wellington Pride side that made the NPC final last year.

Three of last year’s Pride players back making their marks in 2016 for their  club sides are centre Georgia Daals, who plays for the Old Boys University Impalas, lock Petra Kriklanova, with Hutt Old Boys Marist, and Oriental-Rongotai first five-eighth Lizzie Goulden.

All three are enhancing the competition in different ways and all three love their rugby.

Georgia, who plays centre, scored ‘the try’ of the year in Wellington in the 2015 NPC semi-final against Counties-Manukau. With time up on the scoreboard clock at the Petone Rec and the Pride trailing 22-23, Wellington flanker and captain Aimee Sutorius won a turnover, and the ball was moved out to Georgia who sliced through the midfield, pinned her ears back and sprinted 50 metres to score the winning try.

Georgia’s memory of the try is a blur. “I didn’t even know what happened there, “she explained. “It was just luck, I was put in the clear and then I don’t know a thing about it, I just ran as hard and the try was scored!”

Playing in her second season with the Pride, Georgia made the centre jersey her own last year with a series of electric performances, the Pride eventually going down to the powerful Auckland side 9-39 in the Women’s NPC final.

The Pride was a tight-knit group last year. “I think it led from our sevens team at the start of 2015, and then coming into the fifteens season we all quickly gelled.  The new coach Ports [James Porter] was also a positive influence, and us Wellington girls just fed off good vibes and we enjoyed ourselves.”

Georgia is currently playing in her fifth year of club rugby, after starting playing in her final year at St Mary’s College. “My friend Moana [OBU and pride teammate Moana Solia] and I played 10s rugby at school, but my rugby really started once I finished college.

“I attended a Go For Gold tournament and I must have caught the attention of then OBU and Pride player Claire [Shorty] Rowat as she invited along to a club training - and since then I haven’t looked back.”

As well as centre, Georgia has also played first five-eighth at both club and NPC level, where she debuted in the starting XV for the Pride in 2014. “I like playing centre; I can run more with the ball and link up with the players around me.”

Fullback would suit her natural attacking game as well, so a move there in the future wouldn’t be surprising.

Georgia also plays a lot of sevens rugby. “Playing sevens is really hard work, but it’s so much fun playing with the Wellington girls. I don’t have a preference of playing sevens or fifteens, I enjoy them both.”

Georgia and Pride teammate Amanda Rasch (Ories) recently played in a Hong Kong tournament with a New Zealand Barbarians side, with players taken from the NZ Development squad, and invited there by Black Ferns legend and now Hong Kong coach Anna Richards.

This year the Wellington women’s club competition has expanded, which Georgia is excited about.

“Seeing the growth of the women’s club rugby competition from when I started is awesome.  A couple of the new teams are struggling, but give them a couple of years and they will be just as good as the existing ones and that’s great for us all.”

The OBU Impalas have started this season with two wins (over Wainuiomata and Marist St Pat’s) and a loss (to Oriental-Rongotai). On Friday they beat Marist St Pat’s 63-5, with Georgia and fullback Andrea Wadsworth both scoring hat-tricks.

The week before they overcame Wainuiomata 38-27 in an entertaining match. “Wainuiomata’s forwards were strong, with Jax [Jackie Patea] and Kiri Mei both leading the way with their direct running and offloads.”

Outside of rugby, Georgia has recently completed a Bachelor of Applied Management qualification and is working in Petone at the moment and training hard for rugby.

HOBM fielded a women’s team in the competition for the first time last year and the efforts of lock Petra Kriklanova were a big part in them finishing fifth out of nine teams and making the women’s championship round.

The Wellington Pride selectors were impressed with her high work rate and committed approach and picked her for last year’s NPC squad. Cruelly, she dislocated her kneecap in Wellington’s fourth match against Counties Manukau. There was a long break in play and the game was transferred to the adjacent field.

The Pride won 27-12 and Petra returned from the hospital to join her teammates at the after match later that day.

Thankfully Petra recovered well, and after another full season playing her other sport, softball, she is back playing for HOBM this year.

She grew up in her native Czech Republic, where her rugby career started. “I played rugby back home for three years when I was a teenager, but women’s rugby was only just starting then.”

Following the All Blacks back home, she read up about New Zealand and set he sights on coming and living here, and perhaps playing rugby again. “When I came to New Zealand I always thought about playing rugby again, so I gave it another go and joined HOBM at the start of last season.”

She represented the Czech Republic in softball, and played for them twice at the World Softball Championships as their pitcher. This summer just gone she was playing for the Waitakere Bears in Auckland, after playing for the Hutt Valley Saints last year.

She explained that in New Zealand she can play softball in the summer and rugby in the winter, whereas back home softball is played 10 months a year.

Meanwhile, Ories and Pride first five-eighth Lizzie Goulden is currently the sharpest shooter in the east.

Last Friday night, in Ories’ big win over Poneke, Goulden kicked 16 out of 16 conversions.

The week before she kicked eight from eight and in week one seven from eight, giving her a record of 31 from 33 attempts on goal in her first three matches of the season.

What’s been the secret to Lizzie’s success off the tee so far this season?

“I’ve been fortunate in the fact that I’ve had some really good one-on-one kicking coaches and I have taken bits from each of them and put it all together to form my routine, “ she explained. “Now that I have got my routine down pat I know that I can trust my process. If I follow this routine I know that ball’s going to go where I want it to.

“This season the biggest change is that mentally I’ve learnt to block out everything else. In previous seasons if someone had called out to me on the sideline it really affected me, but now I have learnt to block that out”

Lizzie said not all of the 16 conversions she kicked last Friday night were easy, including the one to her own try. “That one was probably about 12 metres in from the sideline - I was nervous not to stuff up the kick of my own try!”

This is Lizzie’s fifth season playing for Ories, after playing for Marist St Pat’s for three years whilst still at school at St Catherine’s College, Kilbirnie.

She has been an integral part of the growth of the Ories women’s side that was built up and that won the Wellington club rugby championship in 2014 and were beaten finalists by Norths last year.

She explained how she joined the club. “I went down to the nearby Polo Ground one night to do some kicking and all of the girls that I had played with at St Cath’s were down there playing sevens and invited me to come and have a run with them. I decided to make a fresh start with all the young girls in a team that would develop. We all started at square one together and worked our way up.”

Lizzie said that it’s fantastic that other clubs are now doing the same. “The more people and clubs involved the better. As much as it can be disheartening with some one-sided results it’s the only way that these sides get better.”

Lizzie, who is her final semester of studying for law and BA degrees, said her rugby focus over the next few months is club rugby for Ories, representative rugby for the Wellington Pride and then hopefully possible selection in the Black Ferns who play a Test series against Australia and then tour to England at the end of year.