Canadian women look to end World Rugby Sevens Series season on high note in France

A season of change wraps up this weekend in Toulouse, France, for the Canadian women's rugby sevens side.

While the eighth-ranked Canadians have not made the podium as they have in the past, coach Jack Hanratty believes the depth developed this year on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, in part due to a rash of injuries, bodes well for the future.

"We've left 11 players at home for this trip, which obviously is a tough thing to say," said Hanratty. "But it also means that we've used more players in a World Series event than any other team this year which has its positives.

"I'd much prefer to swap that and be challenging for an automatic Olympic place this weekend but it wasn't to be."

New Zealand (with 118 points), No. 2 Australia (102 points) and the third-ranked Americans (90 points) have already secured qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics by virtue of a guaranteed top-four finish in the season standings.

France is fourth (with 78 points) but has an Olympic berth as host, That leaves No. 5 Ireland (64), No. 6 Fiji (62) and No. 7 Britain (60) to fight it out this weekend in the season's seventh and final stop for the final automatic Olympic entry.

Live coverage of the event begins Friday at 3:50 a.m. ET on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

The Canadian women, who underwent a massive turnover following the Tokyo Olympics, are coming off back-to-back sixth-place finishes in Vancouver and Hong Kong, their best showing of the season.

"This was a program that was used to winning, used to being on podiums, so we knew that this was always going to be a time of transition," said Hanratty. "And it's not as if we go into these tournaments not wanting, expecting and really vying to get on podiums. But we also