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(Sports) Pakistan's women rugby team to make international debut next month

Xinhua, January 18, 2017 Adjust font size:

Pakistan's national women rugby team is all set to make its international debut by participating in the 2017 Asian Rugby Women's Seven's Trophy in Laos next month, officials said on Wednesday.

An official of the Pakistan Rugby Union (PRU), Shazia Shabbir, said that the country's 14-member team will feature in the event to be held from Feb. 17 to 18 in Laos.

"It is a great achievement for the national team to take part in an international competition for the first time," said Shabbir, who is also likely to be selected for the national team for the tournament.

The PRU is also holding a training camp where they will finalize a team that would feature in the event.

According to the official, participation of the team will bring positive change to Pakistan as more women will now want to be part of the sport.

Pakistan's inexperienced side will play against teams like Thailand and India, among others in the tournament.

Pakistan women's team manager, Syed Moazzam Ali Shah, said that it was a tough challenge for us to prepare the women for the tournament.

"Rugby is a demanding physical sport. It was a challenging mission to keep our girls on the track of tough training to prepare themselves for an international competition. For this, we began the national championship for women by the end of 2015, and now we finally have succeeded in removing fear from their minds and in making them ready for any challenge," said Shah.

Rugby is getting fame in Pakistan, especially at the college and university level. In November last year, Mayor of Pakistani capital Islamabad announced to establish new grounds in the capital, exclusively for rugby.

In 2014, Pakistan men's rugby team had already made an international debut by participating in the Asian Games rugby sevens event in South Korea. Endit