New Zealand Sevens squad named.

New Zealand Sevens Coach Gordon Tietjens has named his 12-man squad for the Adelaide leg of the IRB Sevens World Series.

Tietjens has named a largely unchanged squad from the NZI Sevens and Las Vegas tournaments with Bay of Plenty’s Toby Arnold coming in to replace Counties Manukau speedster Sherwin Stowers who is ruled out with an ankle injury. Bay of Plenty’s Solomon King was also unavailable for selection due to injury.

Waikato’s Save Tokula will travel with the team after successfully appealing a six- match ban he received at the Las Vegas tournament. On appeal the ban was reduced to four matches, meaning he will miss only the first two pool play matches in Adelaide as he stood down for two games in Las Vegas already.

Tietjens said preparations for Adelaide were going well.

“We had a great start to the season but the team were disappointed with their performances in the last two tournaments and we know we need to play at a higher level and improve our accuracy to be successful in Adelaide and Hong Kong,” added Tietjens.

New Zealand currently leads the IRB Sevens World Series with two wins from four tournaments.

Following the Adelaide tournament the team will travel to Hong Kong for the sixth leg of the IRB Sevens World Series.

New Zealand Sevens team for Adelaide:

Kurt Baker (Taranaki)
Tomasi Cama (Manawatu)
DJ Forbes (Counties Manukau)
Paul Grant (Otago)
Tim Mikkelson (Waikato)
Zar Lawrence (Bay of Plenty)
Fritz Lee (Counties Manukau)
Lote Raikabula (Manawatu)
Ben Souness (Taranaki)
Toby Arnold (Bay of Plenty)
Nafi Tuitavake (North Harbour)
Save Tokula (Waikato)



The last four rounds of the 2009/2010 IRB World Sevens Series schedule:
19-21 March 2010 – Adelaide, Australia
26-28 March 2010 – Hong Kong
22-23 May 2010 – London, England
29-30 May 2010 – Edinburgh, Scotland

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