Aussie sevens to play NZ in 6-game series

[The InnFORCEr]

AAP
July 24, 2015, 2:49 pm


Australia's rugby sevens squad will play a six-match series against New Zealand and train with Japan to prepare themselves for their next Olympic qualification tilt.

Needing to win their Oceania regional qualifier in November to guarantee a spot at the Rio Games, coach Geraint John will finetune Australia's game with a testing build-up.

The Japanese national side, tipped to qualify through Asia, will play Australia in an exhibition match as a curtain-raiser to the August 8 Bledisloe Cup clash in Sydney.

John's No.5-ranked team will then train with the Japanese as part of a build up to a series, held over three days in Rotorua, against world No.2 New Zealand in September.

With no world series tournament's scheduled before the November 14-15 regional qualifier in Auckland, the six-match trans-Tasman series will provide an important test for sevens stalwarts to impress before Wallabies players like Quade Cooper and Henry Speight become available.

Samoa rank as Australia's biggest rivals in the qualifying tournament to make the 12-team Olympic competition.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...6-game-series/

[shasta]

With no world series tournament's scheduled before the November 14-15 regional qualifier in Auckland, the six-match trans-Tasman series will provide an important test for sevens stalwarts to impress before Wallabies players like Quade Cooper and Henry Speight become available.

Interesting. The fairness/wisdom of selecting these players is often debated. With the Aus 7's squad's tournament record, it's not that difficult to mount an argument for some 15's players to come into the Olympic squad.

The NZ coach has a more difficult choice. They are light years ahead of the pack in 7's. How do you justify bringing in Messam & SBW, or anyone for that matter? I don't see how you could. Messam, at least has had success at 7's, but that was a decade and many kilograms ago.

I guess there will be pressure from the broadcasters' marketing people to consider too.

[chibi]

Wonder if Akihito Yamada and Fujita will be in that Japanese team?

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