The Rūātoki women’s rugby team are hoping to continue being an inspiration for young wahine in their area and the wider Eastern Bay area.

It’s a team that have made incredible strides over the past three seasons and expect to be competitive in the women’s competition this season.

Captain Ereti Williams said they had assembled a good squad featuring new faces alongside experienced personnel.

“We’re really excited for this year; it will be our third consecutive year in the competition and each year we continue to build opportunities for ladies to represent our club and to be exposed to representative coaches.”

She said the team came together much earlier than previous seasons.

“We started our build-up earlier than previous seasons, have identified areas that we struggled with in previous years and worked on those areas. We have identified positions that we needed to fill and identified girls within the EBOP that we have approached to fill those positions.”

She said they had also managed to secure people to fill three key off-field roles – a physio, manager and videographer.

Williams said the team were trying to keep their goals simple for the season.

“Off the field, with the average age of our team being just 22, we want to ensure we create an environment and culture that attracts and retains players.

"On the field, we want to nail our systems, dominate our set pieces and continue to grow each game.”

Their seven new players hail from around the Eastern Bay, from Kawerau to Ōpōtiki.

Rūātoki also have two sister combinations and the co-captains are aunty and niece.

“Our coaches are all either fathers, uncles, cousins, nephews or partners to the girls within the team.”

They expect tough competition, week-in, week-out.

“In the top division this year, we expect all games to be tight. Each week, teams will need to put their best options on the field.”

Williams said Rūātoki would be in the fight right until the end in all their matches.

“We really are a small fish in a big pond, coming from a community where the population is around 600 in comparison to a place such as Tauranga where there is over 160,000.Not only do we have a small pool to pull from, we have less opportunities for financial support; we don’t have the likes of the rugby academy, NZ sevens base or BOPRU on our doorstep.

“However, last year we received feedback from an opposition club about how our manaakitanga for our manuhiri was mind blowing. The talent within our team gets recognised by representative coaches, we are supported hugely by our club and community – 50 percent of our team whakapapa to Rūātoki, 40 percent travel to play for Rūātoki from outside of the Whakatāne area and, most importantly, we have young girls waiting to play for Rūātoki.”

The team kicked off proceedings last weekend with a 43-0 loss to Ngongotahā and although it was a tough result, first up, Williams said there were still plenty of positives to take from the clash.

“Some have called it the game of the round. There are multiple relationships between both teams and for many of us, we have played with and against many players in Ngongotahā. Although they have come up from the second division, Ngongotahā have a good balance between experience and new players. Across the park they are strong and are under great leadership with Jessie Wharekura.

“It was a really tough day at the office, Ngongotahā’s experience and pre-season work really shone. They absolutely deserved the win.

“Both of our under-18 girls played awesome, Hinerangi Nicholas at halfback and Reese Teepa on the wing.”

This weekend they are on the road to face Tongariro, which will be a difficult away challenge but one they are looking forward to.