Cape fans excites Forbes
Many of the locals in Cape Town prefer to support New Zealand rugby teams and Forbes is well aware of this phenomenon.
"It's always beautiful coming to South Africa, especially coming to Cape Town," said Forbes.
"I heard some good things about it [Cape Town]. We had some support in George and Port Elizabeth, but apparently we got some awesome and passionate supporters in Cape Town. It's going to be a really exciting weekend."
New Zealand have been drawn in Pool D with Samoa, France and Canada and Forbes said they will not be taking those three opponents lightly.
"We are in a pretty tough pool and we just want to do the basics well and hopefully we can aim for at least another top four.
"All three of them on their day can easily trip us up. Every time a team plays New Zealand they seem to bring their best," Forbes added.
New Zealand finished in fourth place in Dubai and Forbes knows that his team is capable of a lot more. He is confident that they can put things right in Cape Town.
"The ultimate goal this year is to keep stepping up the ladder.
"We were probably a couple of seconds away from getting a few better results. A lot of those games went down to the wire, but we are excited that we only have to wait a week to make those corrections."
New Zealand will be without the services of Scott Curry, Gillies Kaka, Tim Mikkelson, Sherwin Stowers and Regan Ware after they all picked up injuries in Dubai last weekend.
However, Forbes is confident that their replacements [Antonio Kirikiri, Beaudein Waka and Ambrose Curtis) will be up to the task this weekend.
"We were hit by a lot of injuries last week. We got some young blokes coming through and hopefully we can get the mix right and put our best foot forward come the weekend."
* Meanwhile The All Black team to play in the Cape Town Sevens this weekend includes three new caps, following a spate of injuries at the Dubai leg of the Sevens World Series last week.
Of the three new caps, Bay of Plenty centre Teddy Stanaway was part of the New Zealand Sevens Development side that played in the Central Coast Sevens in October.
Wellington-based wing Max Pearson was a top try scorer in the local club competition and played in the New Zealand Development side in the Noosa Sevens tournament.
Manawatu loose forward Antonio Kirikiri took part in the recent All Blacks Sevens Dubai training camp.
Ambrose Curtis also returns to the side after being a regular member of the All Black Sevens last season.
Pearson, Kirikiri, Waaka and Curtis travelled to Cape Town after five players were ruled out after being injured at Dubai.
The injured players are Scott Curry (dislocated shoulder), Gillies Kaka (ankle), Tim Mikkelson (concussion), Sherwin Stowers (broken arm) and Regan Ware (ankle).
In addition, Lewis Ormond was on Tuesday ruled out of Cape Town Sevens following a bicep injury at Dubai.
New Zealand: Dylan Collier, Ambrose Curtis, Sam Dickson, DJ Forbes, Antonio Kirikiri, Declan O'Donnell, Max Pearson, Augustine Pulu, Teddy Stanaway, Isaac Te Tamaki, Beaudein Waaka, Joe Webber.
By Warren Fortune
@FortuneWarren
@rugby365com
