All Blacks Sevens squad for Las Vegas and Vancouver named
The All Blacks Sevens squad to play the fourth leg of the 2016/17 HSBC World Series in Las Vegas and Vancouver sees the return of Ambrose Curtis to an otherwise largely unchanged outfit from the one that finished third in Sydney at the beginning of the month.
The team is:
Scott Curry – Captain (Bay of Plenty)
Dylan Collier (Southland)
Ambrose Curtis (Manawatu)
DJ Forbes (Counties Manukau)
Iopu Iopu-Aso (Taranaki)
Trael Joass (Tasman)
Andrew Knewstubb (Tasman)
Vilimoni Koroi (Otago)
Tim Mikkelson (Waikato)
Sione Molia (Counties Manukau)
Tone Ng Shiu (Tasman)
Sherwin Stowers (Counties Manukau)
Isaac Te Tamaki (Waikato)
Beaudein Waaka (Taranaki)
Joe Webber, Sam Dickson, Lewis Ormond, Teddy Stanaway and Rocky Khan were unavailable for selection due to injury.
Curtis, who last started for the All Black Sevens in 2015, played for the Maori All Blacks on their Northern Hemisphere Tour at the end of last year and has been on a training contract with the Blues over the summer.
“It’s great to have a largely settled squad to take to North America. The new players who debuted in the Wellington and Sydney Tournaments have impressed this far, so it’s good to keep giving them game time and experience,” said All Blacks Sevens Head Coach Scott Waldrom.
“The team lifted their performance in Sydney after a disappointing tournament in Wellington. We showed in Sydney that we can compete against the top teams in the series, but in order for us to win Las Vegas, we have to maintain our consistency.
“As always with this Sevens Series pool play has its challenges. Russia won the Challenge Trophy in Sydney, Argentina beat us in Wellington and Kenya is always an exciting team to play against. We won’t be taking any of the matches for granted. We also face the challenge of a three-day tournament which we haven’t had before in this series.”
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