Dubai: The first women's team to arrive for the inaugural Women's Rugby World Cup Sevens landed in Dubai last night, determined to get their hands on the Cup when the tournament kicks off on March 5.
Head coach of the Canadian women's team, Natascha Wesch was thrilled to touch down in the city, after their non-stop flight from Toronto and is relishing the prospect of making history in Dubai.
"It's great. We're obviously very excited. We've been preparing for a long time so to finally be here is wonderful," said Wesch after arriving at Dubai International Airport last night.
"We still have a week of training camp to do and refine a few last things but we're really excited at the immensity of the whole thing and the history-making part of it.
"Being involved in it, I don't think you realise the historic part of it until you look back and you think 'oh wow, that was us - we were part of that'.
"It's a great experience and a great opportunity and we're really honoured to be here but I don't think we'll get the magnitude of it until after it's all done," added the coach, whose side come into this tournament ranked third in the world.
The Canadians will certainly be in with a shot at winning the title, having had the benefit of taking part in last year's Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens.
"We were here in November so that was our dry run for this. Having that experience of the jet lag and the weather and everything was really good. I think that makes a huge difference," explained Wesch.
Canada will face Brazil, Spain and Thailand in their pool matches but it is some of the more established sides they will really be looking out for.
Asked who she believed was in contention for the first ever Women's Rugby World Cup Sevens title, Wesch reckoned: "England for sure, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, France and us. There's going to be some tough competition.
"I think we've been doing really well in the last two years and are building and we came really close to England when we were here last time in Dubai - we only lost by a try.
"We know we only have a few little things to fix and then I think we can do very well. Obviously we're here to prove that we deserve to be ranked third going in and I think we can do even better than that."
