Arabian Gulf appoints full-time fitness coach

Dubai: The Arabian Gulf have underlined their intentions to be as competitive as possible in next year's World Cup Sevens in Dubai by appointing a full-time fitness coach.

Charlie Keenan, a qualified fitness specialist, who has also been capped by Scotland at sevens level, arrives in the emirate next week to start work on a three-month contract.

And his remit is to build on the substantial progress made by the Gulf squad in recent months by further improving fitness and conditioning levels by working with players on a one-to-one basis in the build-up to the World Cup, which takes place at The Sevens on March 5-7.

Andy Cole, a member of the Gulf RFU executive committee charged with the development of the senior sevens and 15s representative teams, said the appointment was an exciting step forward.

He said: "Charlie has a very strong sevens playing background as well as being a fitness coach. It's a great combination and we hope that he can help take the squad to the next level.

"We showed at the Dubai Sevens that we can compete at this level. The tie-up with Paul Treu and South Africa has been hugely beneficial to the squad, and we see Charlie's arrival as another step forward in our plans for the World Cup."

The Gulf came close to a first-ever win on day one of the IRB Sevens only to be denied by Scotland. And on day two they gave Wales a tough fight in the bowl quarter-finals before defeating Georgia 22-12 in the shield semi-finals ahead of losing the final to the USA.

The squad will go to South Africa in January for a training camp with Treu in Stellenbosch.

The Arabian Gulf RFU, meanwhile, will discover this weekend whether it has won a bid to stage the Division I round-robin of the 2009 Asian Championships.

The Gulf, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei are set to play-off in a week-long tournament where promotion to the Asian Five Nations Championship is at stake.

Defeats earlier this year by Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and Kazakhstan meant the Gulf were relegated from the top tier. But officials are keen to see the 15s team return to the top flight as soon as possible.

If the bid is successful, the tournament will be staged in Dubai in April at a venue to be announced.