Denmark Women’s 7s Experiences at Melrose Claymores – “The most media attention Danish rugby has ever gotten”

The Denmark Women’s 7s team came to the April 2026 Cathay HSBC Hong Kong 7s Melrose Claymores as a bit of an unknown quantity and went away with the title at their first attempt. 

Photo Credit – Denmark Women 7s rugby

More importantly, the publicity and awareness raised by their efforts in front of crowds of 40,000 at Kai Tak Stadium will hopefully inspire more players to play the game in Denmark, and kick off commercial investment off the field and international success on the field, which will help grow the game.

This weekend the Danish Women play in the first leg of the 2026 Rugby Europe Championship 7s Series in Hamburg, which takes place from 3-5 July.

Danish Rugby & the Ascendancy of the Women’s 7s Team

Nina Vistisen is the Denmark Women’s 7s Head Coach who, in some ways, pulled off the snatch and grab of the 2026 Melrose Claymores title. After being in the role for five years, she has put the result down to hard work from her amateur team, who came out on top of Hong Kong China and Thailand over three days of action.

As a former player who is Danish but grew up in Singapore and in the UK, where she picked up playing rugby at 19 years of age when she made the transition from basketball, she was at one point on the cusp of representing England 7s.

“Rugby looked more fun, and so I picked it up at university in the UK, and then I quickly rose through the ranks, and played for the University Development Team, the first XV Team, then the County side, then Regionals, and eventually was invited to some England camps. I was trying to get an England Sevens contract at the time, but there were some issues with the eligibility.”

Photo Credit- eaast 7s – Nina Vistisen – Denmark Women’s 7s Head Coach

She played professionally at Saracens in fifteens, and also tried to play in Australia, chasing her dream to be a professional Rugby Sevens player. The experience proved to be heartbreaking, and she left the rugby sphere for a while, not even watching the sport for several years. She then made the move to Denmark, where she met her partner, and where she said she “put rugby on the shelf.”

After the COVID-19 pandemic and spurred on by boredom, she made contact with the then Denmark Rugby 7s coach and got to better understand the rugby being played in the country. 

“Having never known about Danish rugby, my mind was blown away that there were like 40 teams participating in these local tournaments. It was huge, and played at a really high standard. So I reconnected with the national coach. Two weeks later, he said he had a job as a PE teacher in Bangkok and asked if I wanted to take over the team.” 

Nina said yes, her first time coaching, and has since taken the team back up to the top tier of European Rugby in 2026, where they will compete in the Sevens Championship as one of the top 12 teams, and she has won the Melrose Claymores at her first attempt.

Melrose Claymores: Another Building Block For Development

Asked how much this recent experience in Hong Kong will help the team and her own development, Nina said, “It’s a good question, as it is a bit like the chicken or the egg? When I took over the team, we were in the European Conference (bottom division) and then promoted into the Trophy division and qualified for the Championship based on last year’s results. 

We looked ahead and used a team like Poland Women’s 7s as an example, as they had done something similar by rising through the divisions and competing in the HSBC SVNS Challenger last season.

Photo Credit – HLCR – Denmark Women’s 7s – Melrose Claymores 2026 vs HKCR

We had gotten into the Championship after two second places in two finals, games we were very much in control of (both times against Turkey), a bit like the Hong Kong China game at the Melrose Claymores, and then we kind of let it go.

So one of our targets was to be able to play a full 14-minute game. We were really good at making in-game decisions for the first 7-8-9-10 minutes, but then something was happening at the end. So it was about getting a complete performance. The Melrose Claymores allowed us to prepare on the biggest stage possible, in front of the biggest crowd we’ll probably ever play in front of, but without really having anything to lose. 

I think that combination helped us to focus on the complete performance. Even against Thailand on the third day, for us it was a complete performance in that sense of being able to make the right decisions to lose within a certain margin, or draw the game to reach the final. For the players, for the team, for the athletes, it’s really such a sweet moment, because we’ve really come so far over the past five years, but haven’t really won anything.”

The Head Coach added: So this was really great to put Danish rugby on the map, but also for the players to kind of say, “We can win. We can do this. We can do a complete performance.”

Going into this year’s European Championship 7s, this is going to be necessary because we want to stay up there. We don’t want to be an elevator team. We will face teams like GB, Ireland, Belgium, and we want to win games and get into a quarterfinal and enjoy the rest of it.”

The Denmark Women 7s team are in the same pool as GB, Belgium and Ireland in Hamburg.

Lawrence Langley was the Danish Team Manager in Hong Kong, but he started within Danish Rugby on the media side and, unfortunately, or fortunately, as he corrected, stepped up to take control of the operations and behind-the-scenes work to allow the coaches and players to get the most out of their Hong Kong experience.

Photo Credit- eaast 7s

“When we found out we might be travelling to Hong Kong, initially not in the Melrose Caymores, but to get some scrimmage sessions and enjoy the Hong Kong Sevens Rugby Week, I tried to see what I could do to help as I have some connections in World Rugby, and we were just trying to see how we can get the best trip out of them, the best training and the best experiences. 

When the opportunity came up to compete in the Melrose Claymores, we knew it would be a huge opportunity. For me, the only reason why the team got there was because of the hard work they’ve done over the previous five years. They earned the right to be there. 

I stepped up, and I love that management side of it, and it’s always been a dream of mine to work in rugby as well and working with a team that’s high-performance, even though they’re all amateur. I was helping where I could with the coaches and all the players, just being able to perform at the highest level without them having to think about all the practical stuff. 

There are a lot of buses and a lot of food and a lot of transport going on that need to be handled, and timekeeping, which obviously the coaches and players shouldn’t do by themselves. My biggest goal for this trip was just making sure that everything ran smoothly for the high-performance athletes and coaches.

And obviously, Hong Kong China was ready to take a chance on them and see what a European side could potentially bring to the table in this kind of tournament. Offer some different dynamics, some different players. They play in a very different way. I think it was a good thing to experience that for the Danish women, too. To try to play against the nations that play faster and are a bit more agile.”

Photo Credit – HKCR – Denmark Women’s 7s – Melrose Claymores 2026 vs Thailand

The Experiences in Hong Kong Were Unforgettable 

Both Nina and Lawrence were incredibly thankful to the sponsors, partners, Hong Kong China Rugby and all of the rugby community on the ground who made the trip possible. They had to crowdfund and sell shirts and had events with the Danish Consulate in Hong Kong to raise funds and the profile of Danish Women’s Rugby. But there is a long list of thank-yous, which Nina joked is like the post-credit scene of a movie.

Anita Vogel, who plays rugby with the Valley RFC and is Danish, was also a huge help and met the team on arrival in traditional Danish garb. 

Nina explained, “When Anita met us for the first time, she had Viking horns on, was wearing the flag as a cape, and had a sword. She helped us find hotel deals, a gym sponsor, and a fundraiser. Helped with fundraising through selling shirts, invited the team up to the box at Kai Tak Stadium, where we made some friends and contacts, and organised a sailing trip with the entire team and other Danes in Hong Kong 

It’s just amazing how far someone’s willing to go in the rugby community, and we obviously had really good support from the Hong Kong China Rugby Union, who demonstrated amazing communication skills and helped us organise the scrimmages with them and the HSBC SVNS teams. We really felt like we were winners from the very beginning, the way that we were treated.” 

Photo Credit – HKCR – Denmark Women’s 7s – Melrose Claymores 2026 champions

We were also invited as ambassadors to an HKFC World Youth 10s tournament. When I told the players, they were like, “They want to meet us?” They just had such imposter syndrome. But we loved engaging with the kids and taking photos and signing things; our players would not have experienced that before. 

Then the icing on the cake is that we got to have the Australia Women’s Sevens team do our jersey presentation. For them to take time out of their schedule to do that was unreal. They spent time with us, taking photos, and also the exchanges that they had with our players afterwards, and during the tournament, and coming to check in with us over the weekend was unbelievable.

I think rugby is very much about giving and not getting. If you give rugby one moment, it’ll give you a lifetime of experiences. It is incredible, and that is the magic around rugby.”

Melrose Claymores Participation – Unlocking Doors

Photo Credit- eaast 7s – Denmark Women’s 7s

Lawrence added that the heightened media exposure they received from competing at the Melrose Claymores has been unbelievable.

“This is the most media attention Danish rugby has ever gotten historically. We’ve never gotten the Danish radio to write such a big article on us and give us so much exposure.

I went back to my day job in the office on Tuesday after the Hong Kong tournament, and people who’ve never, ever known I was involved with the rugby side and never, ever seen rugby before, came to me and said, “Oh, you’ve been in Hong Kong. Were you with the women’s rugby team?” And they’ve seen it on Danish media, which is great.

A lot of Danish people don’t even know the rules of rugby, and they don’t even know what rugby is. The exposure from this is reaching the broader Danish people. In my eyes, the reason why the Women’s Denmark side is so good is not that they have the best program; it’s because they have a really bloody good coaching team that puts their passion and heart and soul into it, and they have some players who do the same.”

Lawrence added, “From a commercial side, it is basically building a product that is easy and you want to invest in. Before, it was very intangible to tell investors what they would get. For us to be involved in the Melrose Claymores means it’s creating a product that is easier for businesses to invest in. They want to be on that stage. They want to get that exposure.

Hopefully, we can get even more investors who see that and want to support that, and they want to be there because they love rugby.

They’re there because they love the experiences, and now we’ve kind of proven what we can do on a big stage. The players can show up in front of 45,000 people, they can have a ball in their hands, and they can actually win a tournament.

That’s kind of the story we’re trying to tell –  It’s the heart of the players. It’s the heart of the coaching staff. It’s the heart of everybody involved in rugby and Denmark.”

What is Next For Denmark Women’s 7s Rugby?

Since Hong Kong, the Danish Women compete in the Vikinor Nordic Cup against Sweden, Norway, and Finland in Copenhagen, which they won, and also took part in the eaast 7s in France. These have served as good preparation before the 2026 Rugby Europe Championship 7s Series.

Nina said this when asked about how she hoped they would best utilise the exposure of the Melrose Claymores’ victory.

“We are fully self-funded. So to have sponsors who back our ambition, our program, and our future goals is important, and hopefully, the exposure might unlock other commercial partners. I kind of didn’t expect us to be here at this point so soon. 

We’d love to help the players by covering their gym costs, helping them purchase new boots or giving them a day off from work by compensating them – those might be some of the natural next steps to make this sustainable. At the moment, it is a lot of sacrifices, and I think that’s where sacrifice versus experience needs to meet each other. 

More funding would be able to give players and staff some flexibility to make it more sustainable. So that’s definitely something we want to do. We’d love to compete throughout the whole year, but we only play from May-July, and then we shut down again.

We also want to inspire other parents to send their kids to rugby because they can see, if Denmark Women’s Rugby players can play in stadiums like Kai Tak in front of those kinds of crowds, and see the countries we visit, and the people we meet – that is a life investment. It’s not a sporting investment. It’s the life skills that they gain from the really priceless experiences. 

I really just want more women to play rugby and girls to play rugby in Denmark, and it’s been a huge struggle for many years (football and handball are the most popular sports). We only have maybe 150 women players.”

Photo Credit – HKCR – Denmark Women’s 7s – Melrose Claymores 2026 vs HKCR

Biggest Takeaways from Playing in Hong Kong 

Team Manager Lawrence said his favourite takeaway memory from their time in Hong Kong was the development that all the players made. 

“I am a true believer that they’ve become 200% better from the first scrimmage we had against Hong Kong China to how we played at the Melrose Claymores. So the adaptability of the players, and just the way that they got themselves together and acted like a professional team, to then be able to go on the big stage and not crumble and actually put in a performance. 

For me, that was the whole thing. It was not down to one specific moment. It’s down to all the training. It’s down to all the preparation, all the recovery, all the eating, everything they did to get to that point where they could perform as a high-performance team in the end, when they needed to, was phenomenal for me.”

Photo Credit- eaast 7s – Denmark Women’s 7s

Head Coach Nina said she already missed all of the time they had a squad and management together – a theme many teams talk about, including in Hong Kong China Rugby – that time on the road to bond and gel.

“The amount of time we had together, all 37 of us, it was just so nice to come to breakfast and chat with the players. Ask them if they were excited for the development scrimmages, how they felt after the scrimmages, what we’re going to work on or even ‘Hey, do you want to grab a coffee?’ or ‘Are we going to go to karaoke tonight?’

It was all the small things, and I really miss the time together. I really think it brought us closer, and we got to know each other better, and are more secure with one another – that trust & openness is for me transcends into the pitch. Those coach conversations are a lot easier to have. So I miss that. I miss it so much.”

You can follow the Denmark Women’s 7 team on Instagram here.

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