The Scotland 7s team discovered their opponents today for the second event in the IRB Sevens World Series which takes place in George, South Africa.

The Scots were drawn against reigning Rugby World Cup Sevens champions Fiji, South Americans Argentina and the second place qualifier from the African play-offs which take place later this month.

With the Rugby World Cup Sevens taking place in March next year, Gemmell is excited about facing the reigning world champions so early in the season.

"Fiji is a country everyone associates with rugby sevens. We've pushed them hard in our last two encounters and everyone who was at the Edinburgh tournament back in May will remember the epic game we had against them, just losing out in the last few minutes.

Playing Fiji is always a massive challenge, but its all the more exciting now that one of the legends of the game, Waisale Serevi, is their coach and the likes of Rupeni Caucau have been named in their squad.

Fiji will be using the IRB Sevens World Series as a marker for the season as they look to defend their World Cup title."

Scotlands other opponents, Argentina, also pose a significant threat with Santiago Gomez Cora aloft the all-time try scoring table with 197 tries. The same player is also listed fifth in the all-time points table.

Santiago Gomez is very dangerous with the ball, as are the majority of the Argentina side, so well need to keep our shape under pressure and take the contact on our own terms if we are to close them down effectively.

Our work rate will also need to be first class and well have to match them for energy and enthusiasm.

The Scots game against top seeds Fiji is the opening game of the South African tournament of the eight leg series - which finishes in Edinburgh in May  and Gemmell believes that the timing of the game will give his charges a significant lift.

Its always nice to be first up at a tournament. Its something for the players to look forward to and even more so when theyre up against the world champions in a World Cup year.

However, were continuing our preparations for the Singapore Sevens right now and will then take a look at the squad for the Dubai Sevens before we look too far ahead to George.

If you take your eye off the ball for a second in this game then you suffer. With such a busy playing schedule [around three games per day] you need to take things game-by-game and day-by-day so the players minds are fully focussed on Singapore at the moment.

Scotland 7s fixtures on day one of the Emirates Airline South Africa Sevens (5-6 December):
11:37am  Fiji v Scotland
3:05pm  Argentina v Scotland
5:49pm  Scotland v Africa 2

This article was posted on 10-Oct-2008, 11:08 by Hugh Barrow.