By Katja Imholz

Manly’s newest sporting team, the Manly Mermaids, is aiming to ride the wave of the fast growing sport of rugby sevens.

Since February the Manly Rugby Women’s Sevens Team has been training under Coach Jo Trower with the support of Manly Marlins Sevens coach and Second Grade coach Marshall Milroy.

The Manly Mermaids are an exciting group of players with fantastic sporting background and many ties to the Manly Rugby club. Familiar names like Emma Crerar (daughter of Wallaby Rod Crerar), Melaea Ofahengaue (niece of Wallaby ‘Willie O’ Viliami Ofahengaue and daughter of Marlin Sione Ofahengaue) and Aliyah Helu (daughter of Marlin Alex Helu) continue the Manly rugby family traditions. Viviena Hingano will look to replicate the success of her brother Malietoa who is currently playing in France after a great season for the Marlins last year and Mikaela Hedge is excited to now be able to put on the boots as well after watching her brother Rohan play for the Marlins.

The Mermaids come from different sporting backgrounds, there are NSW Sevens rugby representatives, many players with representative touch rugby experience (and with Laura Peattie there is even a Touch World Champion on board), state and former national rugby league players and even an Irish Gaelic Football player. This variety and a few newbies create an exciting team environment.

On Saturday 4 July the Manly Mermaids will have their first chance to show the results of the training at a curtain raiser game against the Central Coast Academy of Sport team. The game will take place at 2:40pm before the Marlins play Northern Suburbs at Manly Oval.

After the exhibition game the team will continue to train to prepare for the upcoming Rugby Sevens season which kicks off with the Manly Seaside Sevens tournament on 29 and 30 August at Manly Oval.

Rugby Sevens has been added to the Olympic Games and the Australian Women’s Sevens team recently qualified for Rio 2016,

The Manly Mermaids train at Keirle Park on Wednesdays 18:30, new players are welcome.