NATASHA Hunt is one of 14 players from last year’s Olympic Sevens side to earn a full-time contract ahead of the new season.

Hunt, from Drybrook, joins 16 other players in total to be contracted by the RFU following England’s runners-up performance at the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

The contracts are fixed term, and run until the end of the season.

Women’s Rugby World Cup finalists Vicky Fleetwood, Alex Matthews and Lydia Thompson, alongside Six Nations Grand Slam winner Sarah McKenna are also named as part of the sevens squad for next year.

The England Women Sevens season will consist of a number of major global tournaments, starting with the HSBC Women’s Sevens World Series where England will compete across five stages worldwide, followed by the 2018 Commonwealth Games which is set to take place on the Gold Coast in Australia in April.

In the summer, England Women sevens will compete in the Rugby Europe Grand Prix Series and having successfully secured qualification last season, the Rugby World Cup Sevens which will take place in San Francisco in July 2018.

James Bailey, who will take up the post of Women’s Sevens head coach, believes the experience the younger members of the squad gained last season will be hugely beneficial to them next term.

"We are looking forward to continuing to build on performances from last season and bring this talented group together and start preparations for what will be an exciting season for Sevens,” he said.