Lavinia Gould will be wearing the All Black Women's 7s jersey this weekend at the Kinesio Cup in Kanwal, New South Wales for the first time since 2012.
In 2012, she was handed a two-year doping ban for taking a dietary supplement deemed as performance enhancing. Following that she had unfortunate injuries on her comeback trail last season.
The Tūhoe descendant says, "I'm stoked to be here and we just look forward to every challenge."
The Kinesio Cup is regarded as one of the world's leading invitational women's tournaments and features teams from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Japan, Fiji, Germany and Hong Kong.
Gould says she focused on the basics to earn her spot back, "Do everything right, tick all the right boxes so you are doing your extras and you actually just break it down to catch and pass, tackle, and you just work every day at every area."
One of those challenges is being thrown into a new position. She says, “I have actually been changed to first receiver as opposed to where I used to play, half back-sweeper. It's a new role, a new challenge but I'm totally looking forward to it.”
The tournament will provide a great opportunity for Gould to gain valuable international game time as the New Zealand side prepares for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
The invitational tournament takes place this weekend, October 24-25.