WORCESTER Warriors' Alex Matthews and Heather Fisher have been named in the 19-player Great Britain Women's sevens training squad for the 2021 season.

Women’s head coach Scott Forrest has selected a group of players which features a number of experienced names who have competed in recent years on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series events and at international XVs level.

16 members of the squad have played club rugby in the Allianz Premier 15s throughout the 2020/21 season to date. The initial squad includes four players from Rio 2016 including Wales’ Jasmine Joyce and England’s Abbie Brown, Heather Fisher and Amy Wilson Hardy.

With the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the Women's Rugby World Cup and the World Series coming up this year, it is a busy season ahead but head coach Forrest is excited at the prospect.

Forrest said: “It is a very strong 19.

"The four players from Rio 2016 bring really good experience, as do the English players who have been playing consistently on the World Series for the past couple of seasons.

"The Scottish and Welsh players have been playing international rugby for a number of years, in both 7s and 15s, and this will be invaluable.

“We appreciate all of the squad have been playing regular rugby over the last year which is a massive strength of our team and how important this has been for their individual growth. A focus for us initially as a GB7s team is to grow the GB7s culture and environment as we now have the opportunity to build something special as a group.

“We feel we have got a really good mix of experience from the last Olympic Games, World Series as well as international rugby but at the same time it’s a very fresh squad which is exciting.

“We know there will be challenges of balancing preparations for Tokyo and the 2021 Rugby World Cup and are working with individual players and all unions to ensure all parties achieve peak performance with player wellbeing of paramount importance.”