{"id":248021,"date":"2025-10-29T06:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/248021\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T06:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T06:01:07","slug":"new-zealand-born-svns-veteran-re-commits-to-australia-sevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/248021\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand-born SVNS veteran re-commits to Australia Sevens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Australia<\/a> Sevens have re-signed one of the more experienced and resilient players in the program, with New Zealand-born Josh Turner returning for the 2025\/26 HSBC SVNS Series season.<\/p>\n

Turner was selected as a travelling reserve for the Paris Olympics in 2024, but the SVNS veteran wasn\u2019t initially renewed on a deal for the start of the new season that December.<\/p>\n

When Nathan Lawson left rugby sevens about 11 months ago to pursue an opportunity in the NRL with St George Illawarra Dragons, the door that allowed Turner to return opened up.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take Turner long to re-establish himself as a key member within the Australian Men\u2019s Sevens squad, making the 30-year-old\u2019s re-signing such a significant announcement.<\/p>\n

Turner debuted on what\u2019s now known as the SVNS Series in 2018, has gone to two Olympic Games after competing in Tokyo, and is now set for an eighth season in Aussie gold.<\/p>\n

Australia Sevens have unveiled other major player news in recent weeks, announcing the men and women who have either re-signed or joined the program for the first time.<\/p>\n

Harry Wilson, Gage Phillips, Beau Morrison<\/a>, Cooper Watters<\/a>, Wallace Charlie and Bailey Roberts-Lintmeijer have all penned deals with Australia Sevens ahead of the season opener next month.<\/p>\n

It was also revealed last week that Jayden Blake<\/a> and James McGregor have re-signed, while a trio of young stars and two Paris Olympics have re-committed to the women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying sevens, you\u2019re constantly running 10 [kilometres] a day, getting flogged but I guess we love it, we\u2019re a bit sick in the head,\u201d James Turner<\/a> told RugbyPass and Rugby.com.au after being named Australia Men\u2019s Sevens Player of the Year at the Rugby Australia Awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it, I love the boys and I\u2019ll happily run 10 [kilometres] with them every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re in a really good spot compared to last year. We\u2019ve got a really good, gelled group, really good core group that\u2019s carried on from last year. I think we\u2019re on to bigger and better things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sort of a bit of a roller-coaster last year because we had a bit of inexperience, but coming into this year, I think the boys are flying. This is my fourth year and it\u2019s getting pretty hard and training because all the boys are quite good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SVNS Series kicks off one month today, with Dubai\u2019s The Sevens Stadium hosting the opener on November 29-30. Cape Town\u2019s DHL Stadium is the second stop the following weekend.<\/p>\n

Singapore, Australia, Vancouver and the USA<\/a> are other regular-season destinations, before the new-look three-leg World Champions gets underway in Hong Kong China.<\/p>\n

Valladolid in Spain<\/a> is the second event during the World Championships series, before the finale in Bordeaux, France, on June 5-7.<\/p>\n

But before that, both Australian teams are deep into pre-season, preparing to take on some of the world\u2019s best teams at the Ignite7 tournament in Tauranga this weekend.<\/p>\n

Both teams will take on New Zealand<\/a> and Fiji<\/a> twice each, but the women will also face Japan, who are looking to build on a strong fifth-placed finish on the SVNS Series in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia Sevens have re-signed one of the more experienced and resilient players in the program, with New Zealand-born…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-248021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}