Canadian rugby sevens women kick off revamped HSBC SVNS season in Dubai

By Canadian Press on November 27, 2025.

A new-look Canadian women’s rugby sevens side kicks off the revamped HSBC SVNS season on Saturday at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai.

Canada has been drawn in Pool B with Britain, Australia and Japan at the weekend tournament, the first of nine events on the elite HSBC SVNS circuit. After Dubai, the Canadian women head straight to South Africa for the Dec. 6-7 stop in Cape Town.

With a large number of Canadian women playing their club rugby in England and France, Canada coach Jocelyn Barrieau expects to field a varied roster throughout the season with the likes of 15s captain Sophie de Goede, World Rugby’s Women’s Player of the year, and former sevens skipper Olivia Apps, both with England’s Saracens, among those expected to slot in at later events.

The Dubai-Cape Town squad features seven players — Carissa Norsten, Breanne Nicholas, Charity Williams, Carmen Izyk, Asia Hogan-Rochester, Savannah Bauder and Larah Wright — who took part in the season-ending HSBC SVNS World Championship in May in Carson, Calif., where the Canadians won bronze.

Hogan-Rochester is the lone member of Canada’s runner-up 15s team at this year’s World Cup in the Dubai squad.

Norsten, named U Sports’ Women’s Rugby Player of the Year last month, captains Canada with Barrieau saying the 22-year-old from Waldheim, Sask., has a “work ethic second to none.”

Piper Logan captained the team last season until she tore the posterior and medial cruciate ligaments in her knee in awkward fall in Canada’s 34-12 loss to New Zealand in the Cup quarterfinal in Vancouver in February.

“We’re hopeful we’ll see her in the jersey again soon,” said Barrieau.

The Canadian squad includes the uncapped Kennedi Stevenson, Adia Pye and reserve Ivy Poetker. Pye travelled with the team to Dubai last season but did not see action.

Barrieau was able to see Canadian young talent during a summer showcase with an under-20 squad also taking part in the Youth Pan American Games.

The eight-team field will be split into two groups with the top two in each advancing to the semifinals. The bottom two teams in each pool will meet to decide final placement.

Each team will play five games per tournament.

The Canadian squad, which has been together since Nov. 5, arrived late Monday after a 15 1/2-hour flight from Los Angeles where they had scrimmaged against the U.S.

World Rugby has revamped the HSBC SVNS format, reducing the field to just eight men’s and eight women’s teams for the first six events of the season — including the March 7-8 stop in Vancouver. The field will then expand for the final three stops, with promotion-relegation in the table.

The Canadian men, relegated in June 2024, are still looking to climb their way back into the top tier.

The Canadian men had hoped to reclaim their place via a promotion-relegation playoff series in May after climbing out of the second-tier Challenger Series. But World Rugby rejigged the entire sevens series structure ahead of the season-ending tournament in California, taking promotion off the table.

Having just won the Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens in Trinidad, they now progress to the HSBC SVNS 3 on Jan. 17-18 in Dubai.

A top-two finish there would move the Canadian men on to the HSBC SVNS 2 competition, scheduled to run February to March with stops in Nairobi, Montevideo and Sao Paulo.

The top four men’s and women’s teams from HSBC SVNS 2 will join the eight HSBC SVNS core sides for the final events in Hong Kong, Valladolid, Spain, and Bordeaux, France, in April, May and June. The top eight teams over that three-event stretch will retain their core status with the bottom four relegated.

In the six-event 2024-25 regular-season standings, Australia was second, Canada fourth, Japan fifth and Britain eighth.

The Canadian women finished eighth in Dubai last December. They followed that by placing fifth in Cape Town, fourth in Perth, seventh in Vancouver and third in both Hong Kong and Singapore to stand fourth overall in the standings in advance of the season finale.

Australia was second at the single-event HSBC SVNS Championship in May while Japan placed sixth and Britain seventh.

Canada Roster (x- denotes uncapped)

Breanne Nicholas, Blenheim, Ont., Kent Havoc RFC; Savannah Bauder, North Vancouver, Capilano RFC; Charity Williams, Toronto, UBC; Carmen Izyk, High River, Alta., RCTPM; Krissy Scurfield, Canmore, Alta., University of Victoria; Eden Kilgour, Barrie, Ont., University of Victoria; Carissa Norsten, Waldheim (capt.), Sask., University of Victoria; x-Adia Pye, Victoria, UBC; Asia Hogan-Rochester, Toronto, Westshore RFC; x-Kennedi Stevenson, Georgetown, Ont., Brantford Harlequins; Larah Wright, Calgary, University of Victoria; Monique Coffey, Dauphin, Man., Scion Sirens; x-Ivy Poetker, Calgary, Calgary Rams; Pamphinette Buisa, Gatineau, Que., Ottawa Irish.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2025

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press