GB women’s squad named

Though funding for 7s has been hard hit by the pandemic,investment from The National Lotteryhas given GB7s a chance to run a new banded pay structure which will give equal opportunities across both the men’s and women’s programmes to be financially rewarded at the same level.In the squad, 11 players are from England, six from Scotland, and two from Wales.

Scotland had a highly successful European Grand Prix when it was last played in 2019, finishing fifth - above England, who ended eighth, and Wales, who were 11th and were relegated – so the balance of Scots and Welsh players is not too much of a surprise.

Whenpreparing for the last Olympicsfour non-English players - Laurie Harries and Jasmine Joyce from Wales, and Stephanie Johnston and Megan Gaffney from Scotland - spent a year training with the England squad, but only Joyce made the final cut for the Rio Games.

Joyce returns , and she is again joined by Gaffney. From Wales they are joined by Hannah Jones, and the other Scots names in the squad are Rhona Lloyd, Helen Nelson, Chloe Rollie, Hannah Smith and Lisa Thomson.

Despite being more numerous this time the non-English players will still face a battle making the 13-player final squad for Tokyo, to be chosen in July. The English 11 all have World Series experience that the Scots and Welsh lack, and opportunities for them to impress on-field will be limited.

Great Britain did not compete in the official World Rugby-sponsored “Olympic preparation” events in Madrid this month, and the only other international sevens current scheduled is the two rounds of the World Series at Marcoussis on 15-16 and 22-23 May – but as it will be a World Series event it is very likely that only English players will be able to take part.

When preparing for the last Olympics, Rugby Europe allowed Great Britain to enter two teams into the 2016 European Grand Prix in place of England and Wales, but there is no guarantee that this will happen again this year and at present no European Sevens tournaments are scheduled.

The 19 players have been narrowed down from from 24 originally named last year, Beth Wilcock, Ellie Kildunne, Jodie Ounsley, Sydney Gregson and Keira Bevan are missing from today's annoucement.

Commenting on his selection Forrest said: “It’s a very strong 19. The four players from Rio 2016 bring really good experience, as do the English players who have been playing consistently on the World Series for the past couple of seasons. The Scottish and Welsh players have been playing international rugby for a number of years, in both 7s and 15s, and this will be invaluable.

“We appreciate all of the squad have been playing regular rugby over the last year which is a massive strength of our team and how important this has been for their individual growth. A focus for us initially as a GB7s team is to grow the GB7s culture and environment as we now have the opportunity to build something special as a group.

“We feel we’ve got a really good mix of experience from the last Olympic Games, World Series as well as international rugby but at the same time it’s a very fresh squad which is exciting.

“We know there will be challenges of balancing preparations for Tokyo and the 2021 Rugby World Cup and are working with individual players and all unions to ensure all parties achieve peak performance with player wellbeing of paramount importance.”

Great Britain training squad

From England:

Holly Aitchison (Saracens); Abbie Brown (Loughborough Lightning); Abi Burton (Wasps); Heather Fisher (Worcester Warriors); Deborah Fleming (Saracens); Megan Jones (Wasps); Alex Matthews (Worcester Warriors); Celia Quansah (Wasps); Helena Rowland (Loughborough Lightning); Emma Uren (Saracens); Amy Wilson Hardy (Wasps)

From Scotland:

Megan Gaffney (Scotland Performance Programme); Rhona Lloyd (Loughborough Lightning); Helen Nelson (Loughborough Lightning); Chloe Rollie (Harlequins); Hannah Smith (Scotland Performance Programme); Lisa Thomson (Scotland Performance Programme)

From Wales:

Hannah Jones (Gloucester-Hartpury); Jasmine Joyce (Bristol Bears)