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Australia’s men’s rugby sevens team will have to get through England and Samoa to have any chance of a medal at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
The draw for the rugby sevens tournament was conducted at Cbus Super Stadium on Thursday morning, with Australia thrown in a tough Pool B with England, Samoa and Jamaica.
The hosts have at least avoided a nightmare first-up meeting with New Zealand, Fiji or South Africa but were always going to be handed a difficult assignment given their fifth seeding.
Only the teams who finish top of the four pools will advance to the semi-finals and play off for medals.
Retired former skipper Ed Jenkins said Pool B was the “best outcome” for Australia – until Samoa were drawn from band three.
“That’s a dark horse you don’t want to be coming up against,” he said.
However, current Australian captain Lewis Holland said they have every reason to be confident in light of their scintillating showing at the Sydney Sevens last weekend – their first World Series title since 2012.
“Off the back of last week, we’re red hot at the moment,” said Holland, who is not with the rest of the team in New Zealand for this weekend’s World Series leg because of injury.
“This is our next big key-ticket item.
“(Once we) come back from New Zealand, there’ll be a lot of preparation and everything will be going forward to the Games from there on in.”
Australia’s women, who didn’t concede a single point in their stunning triumph in Sydney, at least have been granted an easier path to the semi-finals.
The reigning Olympic champions are in Pool B with Fiji, England and Wales.
“It was definitely nice to miss Canada in those early pool stages,” Charlotte Caslick said.
“But Fiji are obviously always tough, they always make us run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
“The English girls are the team this season that keep getting better and better each time I watch them – and the Welsh, we don’t really know what to expect because we don’t see a whole lot of them on the World Series.”
Gold Coast is the first time women’s sevens will have been played at a Commonwealth Games.
MEN’S RUGBY SEVENS DRAW
POOL A: South Africa, Scotland, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia
POOL B: England, Australia, Samoa, Jamaica
POOL C: New Zealand, Canada, Kenya, Zambia
POOL D: Fiji, Wales, Uganda, Sri Lanka
WOMEN’S RUGBY SEVENS DRAW
POOL A: New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Kenya
POOL B: Australia, Fiji, England, Wales