22 Nov 2011

Sport: South Africa keeps internal focus ahead of Gold Coast Sevens

11:39 am on 22 November 2011

South Africa is looking to pick up where they left off when the new World Sevens Series gets underway on the Gold Coast this weekend.

South Africa won the final two tournaments of last season in London and Edinburgh but were still forced to settle for second place overall, behind New Zealand.

Their coach, Paul Treu, admits his players are a bit short on match practice going into the first event of the season.

But he says they have a settled squad and aren't getting caught up in what their opponents are doing.

"We've just focused on us as a team and what's important for us to win games and for every player to play up to his potential. So I don't think we're going to look at any other teams, I mean New Zealand is going to be good, England is going to be, Samoa, Fiji, USA - all the other teams are going to be better than last season so I think for us, what's really important, we want a good start to the season. Last year we didn't start well - we started with six new players - but this time around we have a settled squad and we would like to start the season on a high."

South Africa are in Pool B along with hosts Australia, Japan and the USA.

Fiji and Niue are in Pool A alongside New Zealand and Kenya, while Samoa and Papua New Guinea join Argentina in Pool C.