The recent Bay of Plenty Club Sevens has proven useful for one Eastern Bay club as it looks ahead to next year.

Poroporo competed in the event in Whakatāne at Rugby Park. The club also had teams at the Central Bay Sevens at Puarenga Park in Rotorua and at the Western Bay Sevens at Katikati, seeing them as an opportunity to integrate some new players and improve fitness and ball skills.

“We entered the sevens for numerous reasons; to have fun, give some of the new players a taste, to keep the training going, to keep connected,” said Poroporo women’s coach Geri Paul.

While results were nice, she said their focus was on enhancing everyone’s skills and abilities.

“I think it went well for the club. In the Whakatāne Sevens we had our social women’s, our men’s and our women’s team.

“At Whakarewarewa, we had the netballers, men’s and our premier women, and at Katikati, we had the men and prem women, so we’re pleased to have represented the club at all three.”

Paul said it provided them with a good gauge for next year with the 15-aside format.

“We have benefitted numbers wise. Fingers crossed, we have four new players from the sevens team and a few others who have joined since we started putting it out there. If we all connect, it makes for a good season.”

She said playing sevens was a good opportunity.

“We had a lot of newbies to the sevens game, more than three quarters of the team. So, they got gains from all their coaches, whether it was Mahina (Paul) or her sister, Mererangi, Jimmie-Leigh (Currie) or Cheyne Copland.

With no further sevens events planned, Paul hopes players will keep up their fitness and support Mahina on television whenever possible, until 2026 and trainings roll round.

“That’s it for 7s. With Christmas around the corner and a lot of our girls involved in touch tourneys the window has definitely closed.

“The highlight from the sevens was we got it done, we showed up and did our best; sometimes it was good enough and sometimes it wasn’t. But we were there.”

While this might mean some time off for some, Paul said they were busy trying to sort things for next season.

“I wish we had the luxury of having time off till next year, but we are using this down time to get things in place for 2026, with fundraising in full swing and recruiting players happening.

“The next big event happening at the club is the whanau touch on December 27.”