Powell keen to see Sonny Bill play Sevens

The Springbok Sevens will meet New Zealand in the pool stages at the Welllington leg of the World Sevens Series.

Both teams will have players who have changed codes from Fifteens to Sevens – but Powell is keenly interested to see how league convert and All Blacks star Sonny Bill Williams will fare in the shorter format of the game.

“Wellington will be an important one for us, in regards to coming up against New Zealand in our pool and also the possibility of playing against the likes of Sonny Bill Williams and some Fifteens stars that they’ve brought into their system,” Powell said.

“It will be interesting to see how the regular Sevens players will match up against those types of players and to see how the Fifteens guys are doing in the New Zealand Sevens setup. I think the challenge will probably be defence. It would be interesting to see what Sonny Bill Williams will be capable of on defence if guys like Cheslin Kolbe and Justin Geduld run at him.”

Taking a look at his own camp, Powell said the build up to the next two legs of the series were easier now that some news players had settled into the team.

Springboks Francois Hougaard and Juan de Jongh as well as Cheetahs utility back Rayno Benjamin are all available for the Wellington and Sydney Sevens. According to Powell, having a couple of tournaments under their belts has made training slightly easier in 2016.

“The previous pre-departure camp for Dubai and Cape Town was a lot different in regards to the Fifteens guys that came in - we almost had to teach them the basics of Sevens all over again. This time around we could go straight into our game plan and what we want to achieve in this tournament and be a lot more technical,” Powell said.

“We always say it takes the guys a while to get into the Sevens and it’s great that we can have them for four tournaments in a row. It’s also great to have Rayno Benjamin available for the next two tournaments as well. It’s great, I think they showed what they can bring to the team, especially in Cape Town when they started to understand their roles and I can just see them improving when we go to Wellington and Sydney.”

The Springbok Sevens face hosts, New Zealand, Scotland and Russia in their pool in Wellington at the end of the month.

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