The Papua New Guinea men and women’s sevens rugby teams are on a mission at the Oceania Rugby 7s Championship that gets underway at the ANZ Stadium, Suva on Friday.

PNG men’s sevens coach, Douglas Guise said they are aiming to reach the Cup semi-final.

“We’re ready to work hard during the pool stages as it would mean making it easier for us to reach the semi-final,” he said.

“We are really here to qualify again for Hong Kong and the World Sevens Series as well. Also we want to make it to the Sevens World Cup in San Francisco next year.

We are looking at getting out of the pool stages then we will see what to do next from there.”

Guise said last year they lost to Samoa in the semi-final and they’re looking at improving their game.

AUSSIE THREAT

The Australian men’s rugby sevens team are looking forward to maintain their unbeaten run against the Fiji Airways 7s team at this weekend’s Oceania 7s.

Australia 7s manager Jarred Hodges said they have been training hard since July in preparation for the 2017/18 World Sevens Series.

“The Oceania 7s is our final hit-out before the series begins and is a really important part of our preparation,” he said.

The Australians have beaten Fiji (40-7) in the Oktoberfest 7s final in Munich Germany, (19-17) Central Coast 7s tournament final and (29-0) in the Silicon Valley 7s tournament in USA.

Hodges said the Oceania 7s has all the world top teams playing in it and they need to be respected.

“We’re looking forward to our two pool games against Tonga and Solomon Islands and hopefully progressing on to the knockout stages from there.”

PROMOTING WOMEN

The women’s 7s Cup final will be the last match of the Oceania Rugby 7s Championship which starts this Friday and culminates on Saturday.

This was confirmed to SUNsports yesterday by Oceania Rugby Competitions manager Wayne Schuster.

“Our focus this year and our partnership and collaboration with UN women and the Fijian Government is focussed on growing the game and focussed more of our women to participate. That is a very important part of it,” Schuster said.

“We are excited about playing the women’s final for the last match in the competition. We have to provide an equal platform and put our women in the spotlight,” he added.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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