Russian Rugby World Cup 7s wing Vasily Artemyev remains, likewise Paul Diggin and Junior World Championship winners Tom Stephenson and Alex Day.
The latter of that pair, scrum-half Day, is hopeful that the squad will be able to put into practice some of the lessons they learned from a frustrating elimination last Friday evening as they take to the turf at HQ.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Day said. “I think we struggled in the JP Morgan 7s but that said, it will do us a lot of good in the lead up to the World Club 7s and everybody’s looking forward to what should be a good weekend.”
“Sevens is a lot different as a game and we maybe tried to play too much like 15s which is where we came unstuck. Of course we are not primarily sevens players, but we need to get into sevens mode. It’s a really good test of your skills and fitness as well.”
Saints face off against Buenos Aires, Vodacom Blue Bulls and San Francisco on the Saturday and to make the challenge even tougher, opponents have named squads littered with the stars of the sevens game, including Carlin Isles, the sprint/sevens sensation who will be in San Francisco colours.
“I’ve heard he’s quite quick!” Alex laughed. “We’ll just have to try and shut him down as quickly as possible and restrict his space. It’s dangerous to just focus on one player though and with us not knowing much about a lot of the players we’ll face, at the end of the day it will just be about us going out there and trying to get our roles right and play some good rugby.”
A good turnout is expected at the home of English rugby and with tickets still available by CLICKING HERE Alex is eagerly anticipating an exciting afternoon of rugby, having experienced the Saints’ Aviva Premiership Final at the same venue some three months ago.
“It would be awesome if we could get a good turnout there – the final was an amazing atmosphere so hopefully we can put on a good show in front of a decent crowd at Twickenham.”
When purchasing tickets for the World Club 7s, Saints supporters can claim 50% off standard prices for the weekend by using discount code ‘WORLDCLUB7s’.
SAINTS SQUAD FOR WORLD CLUB 7s
Twickenham
Saturday, 17th and Sunday, 18th August, 2013
1 Danny HOBBS-AWOYEMI
2 Matt WILLIAMS
3 Paul DIGGIN
4 Alex DAY
5 Harry MALLINDER
6 Jacob CONNER
7 Sam HARRY
8 Harry BETTS
9 Ryan GLYNN
10 Tom COLLINS
11 Vasily ARTEMYEV*
12 Tom STEPHENSON
*Sevens international with Russia
SAINTS’ POOL B FIXTURES
12:36pm - Saints v Buenos Aires
3:06pm - Saints v San Francisco
5:33pm - Saints v Vodacom Blue Bulls
