SEVENS - Group of death' holds no fear

Underdog status won't deter the Northland rugby sevens team's hopes of a title shot as they compete in the ``group of death' at the Pub Charity National Sevens tournament in Queenstown tomorrow.
Co-coach JT Thomas said no-one but the team itself is predicting a top showing from Northland as they compete against favourites North Harbour, Counties-Manukau and hosts Southland in pool play.
"The underdog status will definitely help us, no-one expects much from us but they're expecting plenty from our opponents ... sevens is a funny game - it's short and sharp, it's 14 minutes long and if we can keep hold of the ball, we'll give ourselves a very good chance."
According to Thomas, North Harbour are once again the favourites for the tournament.
"I'm not sure if that's the case with the TAB, but we already know how good they are after having a little hit-out against them last Sunday, meanwhile Counties won the Mount Maunganui Sevens and now all we are waiting to hear is if Southland won the southern zone competition and we'll know that we've got the best of the best in our pool," he laughed.
Each game of the competition would be televised live for the first time (on Sky Sport 2) and Thomas hoped that would act in their favour.
"It's hard to work out who that will put more pressure on, let's hope it's not us," he said.
Northland need two wins out of their three pool games to make the quarter-finals on Sunday. He said the Northland side were "fizzing" after their last training on Tuesday and were concentrating on eliminating errors from their game at the tournament.
"The more ball these teams, like North Harbour and Counties get, the more dangerous teams are," Thomas said. "We want to put the result of two and a half months of training out on the field ... and if we do that we'll be close to achieving the perfect game of sevens."
Northland plays North Harbour tomorrow at 12.30pm, Counties at 3.30pm and Southland at 6.10pm.