SEVENS - Northland primed to deal to tough pool rivals

Northland have drawn one of the toughest pools at the national provincial sevens tournament in Queenstown next month but after watching the final trial at Okara Park on Saturday, coach JT Thomas believes it won't be a wasted journey.
"It's a tough pool all right but we've picked a well-rounded team. We've got good overall conditioning, good experience and youthful enthusiasm and the beauty of the sevens game is that on any day, any team can be beaten," he said.
Northland will play first-round matches against North Harbour, Counties and Southland in an effort to progress through to the championship round of the tournament on January 10 and 11.
"We've beaten both Harbour and Counties already [in our warm-up programme] but there will be big changes to all of the teams once they get down to the tournament."
The pool's favourite will be North Harbour but Northland should have a good knowledge of their opponents before they fly south.
"We've got games scheduled against North Harbour on the 4th of January, and they were made prior to the draw being made which means we're going to know them very well by the time we get to Queenstown so it'll be a game of chess against them down there," Thomas said.
The final trials at Okara Park weren't anything like chess but provided some ideal pre-Christmas conditioning for the players.
"I have to say that after running around in the heat of the day yesterday I felt really bad we couldn't take all of them down."
Thomas named 16 in the squad with a couple of players covering for injuries.
"We'll have to make another tough decision and cut four boys from the squad the week we head away to nationals," he said.
There is an added spinoff to naming a bigger squad.
"That keeps the pressure on them though - if they don't do the work they don't get the trip to Queenstown," Thomas said.
Northland: Leon Baigent, Jamal Brogan, Rhyan Caine, Dereck Carpenter, Brad Christenson, Aden Dewes, Warren Dunn, Damien Fakafanua, Brooke Gilmore, Roy Griffin, Luke Muggeridge, Isa Nawaqa, Ross Neil, Joe Ranger, Jake Wainwright, Matt Wright.