{"id":760388,"date":"2026-06-25T23:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760388\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:54:18","slug":"three-bay-of-plenty-players-picked-for-nz-rugby-u18-girls-north-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760388\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Bay of Plenty players picked for NZ Rugby U18 girls\u2019 North squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

NZR women\u2019s high-performance pathways manager Kendra Cocksedge said the programme continued to strengthen the pathway for young female players nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pathways opportunities for women and girls continue to increase and evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen six players from last year\u2019s squads go on to earn professional contracts in Super Rugby Aupiki, which is an amazing result.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those players were athletes now contracted to Chiefs Manawa, the Blues and Matat\u016b sides, highlighting the growing connection between age-grade rugby and the professional women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

Cocksedge said the camp was about more than rugby.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe camp is about growing the girls as people and players. We want to give them the skills they need to progress their careers and an understanding of what it takes to go to the next level on and off the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe match itself is their opportunity to put what they\u2019ve learned into play and also gives us a chance to see the players in a competitive match-day environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The North squad is drawn from players based in unions north of the Bay of Plenty and surrounding regions, while the South squad includes athletes from Hawke\u2019s Bay southwards, including the South Island.<\/p>\n

For Bay of Plenty rugby, the selection of three players across key positions reflects the region\u2019s continued contribution to the national women\u2019s pathway, with talent emerging from school and club systems across Tauranga and Rotorua.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZR women\u2019s high-performance pathways manager Kendra Cocksedge said the programme continued to strengthen the pathway for young female…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,9826,580,29732,47,1697,1787,28334,7820,46677,760,85,9677,13807,363138],"class_list":["post-760388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bay","tag-for","tag-girls","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-picked","tag-players","tag-plenty","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-squad","tag-three","tag-u18"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760388","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=760388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}