SCOTLAND will field their quickest team yet in the IRB World Sevens Series at Twickenham, but coach Stevie Gemmell has admitted that they will still have to play out of their skins to qualify for the last eight after being handed a very tough draw.
The Scots have fallen into a tough cycle on this season's circuit where they have lost players due to injury and under-performed, which has left them out of the top eight seeds and struggling to fight they way past two higher-ranked nations each tim
e to get back into the top eight.
Their failure to pick up any points on the circuit has left them ranked out of the top 15. That has ended in draws for Twickenham and next weekend's Murrayfield finale that pitch Scotland in with three higher-ranked sides each time – Kenya, Fiji and the fast-improving USA this weekend and Kenya, England and Canada back in Edinburgh.
Gemmell has persuaded the SRU to release some leading professionals to help their cause with Allister Hogg coming off his first season of playing in every single Edinburgh match to complete a full set of honours with an appearance in the sevens arena, and Scotland wing Thom Evans also joining the squad.
His brother, Max, was excited at the prospect of returning to sevens as well, the Evans' having first alerted people to their top-class talents in Scotland's sevens team two years ago, however, a knee ligament injury has ruled him out.
His Glasgow team-mates Hefin O'Hare and Colin Gregor lead the west-coast involvement while Edinburgh pros John Houston, Greig Laidlaw and Andrew Turnbull are involved alongside the pick of recent Scotland sevens teams: Roddy Grant, Jim Thompson, Mike Adamson, Colin Shaw and skipper Scott Forrest. But Gemmell insisted: "It'll be very tough. We've beaten all of these opponents in the past, but they've beaten us as well.
"We need to make sure we get our game right, but I'm confident, with the squad of players we've got, that we can do that.
"He (Thom] has played before and the advantage of bringing players like Thom and Ally in is they are experienced rugby players so they get hold of the game very early.
"The nature of sevens is that the margin for error is very small. We need to keep our error count low, make sure that when we've got ball we make good use of it and with the opposition we've got, we re-organise quickly and make good tackles.
"It's probably the quickest squad we've ever been able to put out, but we've got to match that with the ability to win ball and certainly our forwards will be able to do that.
"We have also got good playmakers in Colin Gregor and Mike Adamson and if we can get the ball out wide to Thom (Evans] and Turny (Turnbull] we'll certainly have a real go."
Tickets for each day of the Emirates Airline Edinburgh Sevens Festival – priced at £15 for adults, £10 for students and senior citizens and £5 for under 18s – are still available at www. scottishrugbytickets.com, by calling the Ticket Hotline on 08712 001511 or in person from the Murrayfield Ticket Centre (open 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday).
Scotland 7s squad: to compete at the final two events on the IRB Sevens World Series in London (23 and 24 May) and Edinburgh (30 and 31 May): S Forrest (Ayr) capt, R Grant (West of Scotland), M Adamson, T Evans, C Gregor, H O'Hare, C Shaw (all Glasgow), A Hogg, J Houston, G Laidlaw, J Thompson, A Turnbull (all Edinburgh).
Emirates Airline London Sevens fixtures (Saturday 23 May): Kenya v Scotland (12:41pm), Fiji v Scotland (3:25pm), USA v Scotland (6:21pm).
The full article contains 638 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
