Gold hunters on the Gold Coast
One week remains until the kick-off of the Sevens World Series 2011/12 in Australia at the Gold Coast Sevens – Fever Pitch on November 25-26.
The inaugural event at the Gold Coast is eagerly anticipated and begins an exciting triple-header to bring in the new season. Round 1 in Australia will be followed by tournaments in Dubai and South Africa on the next two weekends.
Defending Series champions New Zealand will top Pool A at the Gold Coast’s Skilled Stadium and face a mouth-watering match against Fiji as well as further tests on day one from Kenya and qualifiers Niue.
Hosts Australia are drawn in Pool B, which is topped by last season’s second-placed side South Africa. The two SANZAR giants also face USA and Japan.
Samoa were drawn top of Pool C and face group matches against Argentina, France and PNG.
England were drawn top of Pool D, where they face the two other British nations in the draw, Scotland and Wales, as well as Tonga.
All the coaches are ready for the new season to test who has come up with the right gameplan.
“The first tournament of the year is always exciting and I am pleased with the way the squad has come together and trained in the lead-up,” New Zealand coach Gordon Tietjens said.
“The Gold Coast is a new stop on the Series and we are looking forward to starting our campaign off strongly there.”
Australia’s coach Michael O’Connor has had a tough task of adding a number of new faces before their home tournament.
“Weve had a solid preparation and introduced a number of new players to International Sevens,” O’Connor said.
“We were fortunate enough to have the tour to Samoa, in which we were able to blood 11 new players on the international stage and we feel that our pluses certainly outweigh the negatives leading into the opening round.
Wales coach Paul John took his side off to Spain as prepartations for the new season.
“Preparations have been going well. We went to Spain a week ago and were forced through injury to take a lot of players we hadnt played before but it was a very pleasing exercise,” he said.
“We were able to play England, Scotland, France, Spain and Portugal which are all recognised as highly competitive international teams. We wanted the boys to get a taste for it before we step up onto the big stage next week. “
