Sevens: Youth and flair for Bay

Youth and attacking flair will be on show at the Bayleys National Sevens in Rotorua.

The Bay of Plenty men's sevens team will feature plenty of youth and attacking flair at the Bayleys National Sevens in Rotorua.

Bay men's coach Peter Woods has named his 12-strong team to chase a national sevens title at the Rotorua International Stadium this weekend.

He said the squad featured plenty of quality despite being a relatively inexperienced side - with three of his players still in high school last year.

Woods said one of the strengths of his team was the versatility of the players, which could help later in the tournament if they suffered any injuries.

"If you go through the players, a lot of them can play three positions and all of them can play at least two positions."

Last year, the Bay men's team made the semifinals at the national tournament and will be hoping for another strong showing this year.

Woods said a crucial game for them on day one tomorrow would be their first-up match against Northland (at 12.05pm), which could decide who goes through in their pool to the Cup quarter-finals.

"It's a massive game.

"That game is a quarter-final for us, if we can get a win first up we will have one foot in the door [to make the playoffs]."

The Bay of Plenty are in a tough pool on day one alongside Auckland, Northland and South Canterbury, with the top two progressing to the Cup quarter-finals on day two.

The Bay lost to Northland last weekend during their final warm-up tournament in Mount Maunganui and Woods said they would have to be better this weekend with ball retention.

"Ball retention is a big thing for us.

"When we played Northland and Waikato [last weekend] we turned ball over and it created a lot of points for them," he said.

"So it is something that we need to fix but it is an easy fix, it is the mental side of things."

The Bay team will be captained by Matt Axtens. Meanwhile, Teddy Stanaway and Isaac Te Aute will add plenty of class to the side having been part of the All Blacks Sevens squad this season.

One of the Bay's most experienced sevens players, former All Blacks Sevens representative Zar Lawrence, was still in doubt with an achilles problem yesterday and Woods said he might be replaced for the tournament by Eru Smith-Wano.

Pool play gets underway at 9.25am tomorrow with the playoffs kicking-off at 10.05am on Sunday.

- Check out the Rotorua Daily Post website at www.dailypost.co.nz this weekend for full coverage and results from the Bayleys National Sevens.

The pools:

MEN:

Pool A: Auckland, Northland, Bay of Plenty, South Canterbury.

Pool B: Hawke's Bay, Otago, Wellington, Taranaki.

Pool C: Counties Manukau, North Harbour, Wanganui, Mid Canterbury.

Pool D: Waikato, Manawatu, Tasman, Canterbury.

WOMEN:

Pool 1: Counties Manukau, Waikato, Wellington, North Harbour,
Otago.

Pool 2: Manawatu, Auckland, Wairarapa Bush, Canterbury, Tasman.