T&T women's rug­by sev­ens team led by cap­tain Ayana Skeete left yes­ter­day for Ire­land ahead of the World Rug­by Women's Sev­ens Olympic Repechage in Dublin. The Olympic qual­i­fy­ing tour­na­ment will take place from June 25-26.

The lo­cal team which will al­so be well equipped with last year's "Play­er of the Year" Or­nel­la George, and sea­soned play­ers Dalia Jor­dan-Brown, Ak­i­la Low­man, Ken­isha Vin­cent and On­i­ca George, will stop off in Kilken­ny first to com­pete in the Mar­ble City 7's Rug­by Tour­na­ment on Sat­ur­day as a warmup be­fore head­ing to Dublin.

Skeete with the sup­port of vice-cap­tain Nico­lette Pan­tor will seek to guide the rug­ger­women against some tough com­pe­ti­tion, play­ing along­side teams from Kaza­khstan, Chi­na, Hong Kong, Kenya, Ugan­da, Zim­bab­we, Rus­sia, Spain, Por­tu­gal, Mex­i­co, Ire­land, Samoa, Cook Is­lands, Uruguay and Ar­genti­na for the fi­nal cov­et­ed place at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

The win­ner of the tour­na­ment will join New Zealand, Cana­da, Aus­tralia, Great Britain, Colom­bia, USA, France, Fi­ji, Japan and hosts Brazil at Rio 2016 in Au­gust.

Two teams from each pool of four progress in­to the quar­ter-fi­nals where it will be a straight shoot-out for pro­gres­sion in­to the fi­nal. On­ly the win­ners will join the 11 oth­er sides in Rio for the his­toric re­turn of rug­by to the Olympic Games pro­gramme af­ter a break of 92 years. The women's sev­ens at the Games will take place from Au­gust 6-8 in De­odoro Olympic Park.

T&T will match skills against Por­tu­gal, Chi­na and host Ire­land in Pool C. The lo­cal team will kick off day one at the UCD Bowl at 8.30 pm (T&T time) when it faces Ire­land.

If the women's unit is suc­cess­ful, it will be the first time that T&T has a team sport qual­i­fy for the biggest sport­ing event in the world.