Oceania Sevens welcome teams before the action Planet Sevens – Planet Sevens

Oceania Rugby gave fans a sneak peak of their welcome event last night for Fiji and New Zealand as the PacificAus Oceania 7s gets ready to kick off.

Teams were seen laughing and enjoying the night as Australia welcomed their neighboring guests.

Fiji will be making their international debut since the pandemic, all eyes are on the gold medalist as no one has seen how the new Fijian squad will perform on a big stage. Jerry Tuwai will be the captain for the defending champions as they aim for a back to back gold medal at the Olympic Games.

The Australian women are the returning gold medalists from the 2016 Rio Olympics, after that emotional final match against New Zealand. Australia will be missing Alicia Quirk who was a vital player for the 2016 squad, but will be graced with the return of Chloe Dalton who had previously suffered an injury. The ladies have had all eyes on them as the pressure rises for them to come home with a second gold medal.

New Zealand was also present last evening as they enter the games undefeated by the Australian men in their previous encounter, while the Black Ferns only lost one game to the gold medalists. The New Zealand womens 7s had recently suffered a devastating blow after Niall Williams, an important player for the squad suffered a neck injury which forced her to withdraw in the Oceania 7s and Tokyo Games.

Williams took on social media to announce her absence with a tearful video of her explain the ups and downs athletes have to go through in their career.

With the fun and games of the welcome party over, teams now get down to business as they make their final preparations for the Tokyo Olympics.

All three countries will stop at nothing and will not take anything less than a gold medal as a win. The Oceania Games will kick off in tomorrow, June 25 at 12am, the games will continue till June 27 as the three teams compete for dominance before flying to Tokyo for the Olympic Games.

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Oceania Sevens welcome teams before the action Planet Sevens - Planet Sevens