Sevens offers taste of home hype
AUSTRALIA’S women will use next week’s Sydney Sevens rugby tournament as a practice run for dealing with the home pressures of playing at a Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in April.
The second round of the HSBC Sevens World Series will be played over three days from January 26 at Allianz Sta- dium and is the only Australian leg of the event.
Australian winger Dom Du Toit said the tournament, at which the women will play alongside the men, would be the perfect way for the team to get used to the additional attention of playing at home.
“We are just going to try to treat it like any other tournament, just like the last leg in Dubai,’’ she said. “While it is very, very exciting to be at home, we have to manage the distractions. We are trying not to ... get too caught up.’’
Du Toit, a travelling reserve for the Australian team that won gold at the Rio Olympics, was part of the side that opened the 2017-18 World Series with a victory in Dubai late last year.
She said the host team were keen to continue their winning ways in Sydney after finishing second behind New Zealand in the last series.
Going into the Sydney Sevens, Australia are on top of the points table ahead of the US, Russia, Canada and New Zealand. Each game will be two seven-minute halves, with a two-minute halftime break.
Seventy-nine games will be played over the three-day tournament.