The next two tournaments begin with the first leg beginning in New Zealand on Februay 3rd in Wellington with the USA event being staged in Las Vegas a week later.
Wales were forced to send a raw and inexperienced squad to the opening stanzas in Australia, Dubai and South Africa due to injuries to key ‘core’ players but the Welsh young guns rose to the occasion and came back with two Plates after winning the Gold Coast and Port Elizabeth finals.
With five weeks to go until the next stage of the series, several ‘core’ players could find themselves in the mix for selection after shaking off various injuries and ailments. However their inclusion is now no foregone conclusion after the likes of teenagers Harry Robinson, Rhys Patchell and Tom Habberfield took to the game with aplomb.
“That’s great, I would love to have some selection headaches,” said John. “It will be the first time I’ve been in that position if it happens. It’s normally a battle to get a squad to go away for whatever reason.
“We’ve got the core players coming back and then we have the youngsters who have put their hand up. They played really, really well in the first three rounds so hopefully we have got some tough decisions to make.”
After three rounds Wales lie in seventh position with 36 points with big hitters Fiji and New Zealand sharing the lead with 51 but John is pleased with the team’s progress.
“Overall we are happy with our start to the campaign. When we left we had eight new internationals in the squad so we’re really pleased – first and foremost to make three quarter finals. Saying that I was a bit disappointed with the Argentina quarter-final in Dubai because that was a game we should have won. But as a consequence we won two Plates so I’m pleased for the boys.
“New players came through and made an impact on the IRB World Series – they managed themselves really well and the conditioning has really paid off. We had a lot of injuries to our core players – I think it is something like 60% – but what it does now is make the whole squad very competitive as we have got competition for places.”
Fiji, still hurting from their humiliation to Wales in Port Elizabeth where they condemned to their second biggest ever defeat, Argentina and Tonga lie in wait for Wellington’s pool.
“I’m sure Fiji will be smarting from the last game where we nearly put 50 points on them,” admitted John.
“We’ve played Argentina in one quarter-final and lost to them. That is a massive game for us because we want to keep above them in the points table as our aim is finish as high as we can. Then there is Tonga who are capable of beating anybody.
“But the boys have already shown we can be competitive against any of the top sides so we will go into the tournaments with plenty of confidence.”
