Wales currently find themselves in seventh position on the overall points table with this weekend’s tournament in Glasgow’s Scotstoun Stadium the penultimate event with the final round to be played next week in Twickenham.
Wales have 71 points while New Zealand lead the way after seven rounds with 128. Considering John has had to contend with a crippling injury list to key personnel during the campaign, regional call-ups and club commitments, Wales have done remarkably well to reach their current position.
Wales have had to make changes once again for this weekend’s inaugural Emirates Airline Glasgow Sevens with Rhys Patchell, Thomas Grabham and Sion Bennett replacing Harry Robinson, Tom Habberfield and Richie Pugh.
“Thomas is a similar player to Tom – they have been sharing the scrum half duties at Bridgend and both have done well at club level this season. Sion is a footballing forward and is part of the Scarlets Academy setup having featured prominently for Coleg Sir Gar. And Rhys is no stranger to us as he figured for us in some earlier rounds,” John.
“This weekend we’ve just to ensure that we get off to a winning start against Scotland which will be no easy task. They have picked up a couple of Bowls this season and will be full of confidence and they will obviously have the home crowd behind them so that’s going to be a huge factor in their favour.
“Then we play Russia who perhaps haven’t played as well as they would have hoped recently so they will be tough as they have proved repeatedly that they can’t be underestimated. Our final Pool d game will be against South Africa who are currently sitting in third position overall on the points table and they will be desperate to close the gap behind Fiji who are in second place behind New Zealand so we have a huge task ahead of us.
John concluded: “However the boys have trained well over the past couple of weeks and despite having to make three changes we’re confident going into the penultimate round of the series.”
Wales squad: Lee Williams, Rhys Jones, Alex Walker, Tom Grabham, Dan Fish, Rhys Patchell, Ifan Evans, Rhys Shellard, Richard Smith, Sion Bennett, Adam Thomas, Craig Price.
