This Friday, Williams announces the team that will travel to Dubai for the first leg of the competition, which begins in a week’s time. It will be the first weekend of major men’s sevens action since Fiji and Team GB competed for Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro’s Deodoro Stadium in August.
“Pre-season has been set over two stages,” explained Williams, who has been impressed at his players’ physical achievements thus far. “Prior to the Olympics, five of the core group were back in working exclusively on their strength and conditioning with Eifion Roberts and our physio, Gary Ahmed. Post-Olympics, we all got back together and have been working extremely hard since then.”
The group is, according to Williams, very close-knit. “To a man, they all thrive in the team environment and hopefully that translates to the pitch when we’re in competition.
“We’ve picked up on the rugby side of things since September, when myself and [assistant coach] Richie Pugh have been back in from a coaching point of view. Sam Cross, Luke Treharne and Luke Morgan have re-joined the group after their Olympic adventure, so we’re at an exciting phase.”
Whilst the players might have been reaching peak physical condition thanks to quality conditioning and physiotherapy, and their skills honed every day they were in camp, their head coach was perfectly aware that another element needed adding to their preparations.
“You can’t hide from the fact that being out there on the pitch and playing is the most important thing of all,” says Williams.
As such, Wales have been testing themselves against the Home Nations in recent weeks in order to fine-tune their match sharpness.
“Ireland came over for some match scenarios a fortnight ago, and last week we went to Lensbury in Middlesex to play England and Scotland. They were brilliant exercises and gave us real quality opposition.”
“We also played against a Welsh invitational side, Carmarthen Warriors, not so long ago, which gave us that physicality we needed at that period. They’ve all been superb interventions in our training programme and exactly what the boys needed.”
Williams believes that building support from back home could be critical to his team’s success on their sevens journey this season.
“We can cultivate that through the way we represent the nation and how we perform, because that support is massive,” he emphasises.
“That optimism, all those messages of good luck on social media and so forth, can’t help but trickle through to the team. The players’ desire to represent the three feathers is massive within the group too, and it will drive us on through the year.”
Dubai 7s takes place on 2nd-3rd December 2016. Wales Sevens will name their squad for the first leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series on Friday 25th November.
