Nauru Women’s Rugby Team Competes Internationally

This year was the second year of the tournament, and the Nauruan team competed against nine other teams over the weekend.

Unique Harris, Team Manager of the Nauru Women’s team, says Nauru Rugby Union decided to start hosting rugby clinics for women last year as a way to keep healthy and promote a healthy lifestyle.

“The team exceeded everyone’s expectations,” Unique says.

“This is Nauru’s first ever women’s team and it was their first time playing overseas!”

They played a total of four pool games and went into the plate semi-finals.

“They lost that game, but their performance on the field was spectacular and we’re so proud of each and every single one of them,” Unique says, adding that they’re taking this as a learning curve to keep on improving each other and as a team.

“We’ve got a big week ahead of us now.”

Unique says the girls are still on a high and are now flying to Fiji to compete at the Oceania Championships this weekend.

Their first game in Fiji will be competing against Australia, which is going to be a great game for the team!

“They did extremely well in Brisbane. The girls made a massive improvement in every single game which was very good to see.”

Unique says they have strived to keep improving the men’s and women’s teams and to keep building up and developing the sport by reaching out to the community.

“The calibre of the team we sent this year is really just the tip of the iceberg,” Unique says.

She expects there will be more interest in rugby in Nauru from now on and hopes more people will want to join the teams in future.

Unique emphasised that rugby truly is a game for all ages and sizes.

“AFL has been the unofficial sport of Nauru for the past three or four generations and to have rugby growing in Nauru is really exciting,” Unique says.

“It’s really exciting to see the Nauruan population understand that AFL is not the only sport out there.”

“We want to make sure everyone is aware Nauru Rugby Union is here to stay! It’s an exciting game and an exciting team.”

Next year, Unique hopes Nauru can send a men’s and a women’s team to compete.