Dubai: Australia coach Chris Lane admits the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup in Dubai this weekend will be a step into the unknown for him and his team.
Lane has only been working with the Aussie side — who won the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup in the emirate — for five weeks and some members of his squad have only been playing the sport for that long.
Only four members of that victorious 2009 side are back to compete in the UAE for the women's game's first ever IRB-sanctioned event today and tomorrow and Lane isn't sure how his new-look squad will perform.
"I've been working very hard with the girls over the last five weeks and we're looking forward to seeing if we can transfer that on to the pitch," he said.
Good progress
"It's a whole new learning curve from XVs to sevens for these girls and we have some girls who are new to the game. They've come over from touch football so they come with great ball skills, spatial awareness that sort of thing, which is very important in rugby sevens, but things like tackling are a whole new game for them.
"I don't know too much about the standard of the tournament, but our own standards I'm pretty happy with. We're probably 18 months away long term, but we're certainly making good progress and it's an exciting time."
On playing in front of what promises to be a packed-out Sevens Stadium, Lane added: "It's another new experience playing in front of that sort of crowd with that sot of noise — that's something they don't experience in Australia.
"It's one of the great unknowns how we will respond to that. Will the crowd noise and pressure affect us? I don't know, but I hope not.
"Whatever happens, the tournament will be a wonderful experience for the girls and I hope we can continue to improve. It's an enormous honour for all the teams to be participating in this tournament, which is the first of its kind."
Groupings
- The women's matches will be played on pitches one and two from 11.20am today, when the USA and South Africa kick off the tournament with a Pool B match on pitch two. The final is due to be played on pitch one at 7.18pm tomorrow.
- Pool A: Australia, Canada, Spain, Brazil
- Pool B: USA, England, South Africa, China
