All Blacks Sevens coach Sir Gordon Tietjens hopes Sonny Bill Williams and Liam Messam will bolster his squad for the Wellington Sevens in January. Photo/Getty.
All Blacks Sevens coach Sir Gordon Tietjens is eager to introduce Sonny Bill Williams and Liam Messam into his squad for the Wellington Sevens in January.
Following his injury ravaged side's disappointing fourth-place finish at the Cape Town Sevens today, Tietjens is hoping Williams and Messam will be available to
bolster his squad along with the return from injury of several other key players.
The presence of the two World Cup winning All Blacks would come as a tremendous boost to the side for the New Zealand leg of the World Sevens series (January 30-31), after today's 28-14 defeat to USA in the plate semifinals of the South African event.
"I'm certainly going to look forward to having those players and players like Sonny Bill Williams, Liam Messam, Ardie Savea, Ben Lam, Akira and Rieko Ioane," Tietjens told Radio Sport.
"But my real concern is the contracted players that we have now - the Joe Webber's, the Tim Mikkelson's, and the Scott Curry's, and Gillies Kaka's, and the Regan Wears - and those players that are out injured now back in New Zealand, that they rehab very, very quickly because we need them back as well."
