Recalled speedster Trae Williams will be given time to find his feet at the Cape Town Sevens before any head-to-head against pacy American star Perry Baker is considered.
Australian men’s sevens head coach John Manenti said there was no pressure on the former track sprinter to “change the world” just “do his job and enjoy it.”
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Early in 2019, when Williams first quit his 100m ambitions on the track to pursue his shot as a sevens finisher, the hype was always ahead of his education as a rugby player.
It was no fault of Williams or the media seizing on a cool story. When you put “Australian 100m track champ” together with “new Olympic destiny in rugby sevens”, everyone’s ideas raced too quickly to the finish line.
What Williams needed was rugby and plenty of it because he hadn’t played since school days in Brisbane.
He was given a taste with the Aussie Sevens team, had his moments, discovered all he had to learn to get involved more and started developing his all-round game.
He didn’t make the Tokyo Olympic team but playing with Southern Districts in Sydney enabled him to catch up on his missing rugby education.
When he made an eye-catching guest appearance for Brisbane club Easts, beside former Aussie Sevens player Josh Coward, at last month’s Queensland State Sevens in Noosa, Manenti caught wind of it.
“Losing Corey Toole this season (to the ACT Brumbies) has taken express pace out of our squad. With Kye Oates joining James Turner and Darby Lancaster on the sidelines, we are down on finishers generally,” Manenti explained.
“We need some speed. I knew Trae had a really good Noosa tournament, gave him a call and he jumped at the chance to fly over to Cape Town.”
Manenti has already noticed the difference in a winger who is two years removed from his last Aussie Sevens outing.
“Trae just looks a lot more comfortable. Just playing and training every day as a rugby player brings that and it’s been part of his footy development,” Manenti said.
“We’ve not flown him over not to use him so, yeah, Trae will get his chances while we are also careful of the load we put on him.”
The recent Hong Kong Sevens champions bowed out in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Sevens last weekend which shows how tight it is in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
The Aussies will get a shot at redeeming themselves against the USA, after a 24-19 quarter-final loss in Dubai, because the Americans are in the same pool in Cape Town.
The Aussie Men kick-off pool play against Great Britain, at 1:50am AEDT, on Saturday before playing Uganda and the USA.
The lean, elusive Baker may be 36 but he is still a potent sevens legend with 235 career tries from 300 games in the World Rugby Sevens Series.
He tormented the Australians in Dubai.
“If you don’t shut down Perry Baker, you don’t shut down the USA,” Manenti said succinctly.
“We were just a few percent off in Dubai and dropped a few games. It shows you how tight this competition is. It’s nice we get a chance to get back at the Americans straight away.”
New skipper Henry Hutchison may be given the role to stifle Baker but Williams might also be a contender should he audition well.
Regular skipper Nick Malouf is already back home in Brisbane recovering from ankle surgery and faces at least three months out of the game. Landing awkwardly on an opponent’s foot when checked chasing a kick-off did the damage in Dubai.
Manenti has called up Manly colt Dally Bird, a No.8, to add to the squad’s forward depth as a potential debutant this weekend.
