Stewart Melville's Scott Riddell returns to the squad
Scotland 7s head coach, Graham Shiel, has pointed to the importance of Scotland’s domestic club game in building a successful sevens team for the 2010/11 HSBC Sevens World Series and the future.
In a fresh approach to the international abbreviated game, Shiel has worked with a group of top performers in Scotland’s club game with the view to nurturing the specialist sevens skills and bolstering the player pool available for selection for this weekend’s tournament in Dubai and for the future of the sevens game.
Scotland 7s head coach, Graham Shiel, said: “We have a limited pool of elite players in Scotland to select from so it’s important that we make efforts to increase the playing resource available not just for sevens but for the many teams that Scottish rugby fields during a very busy international season.
“We have been engaging with the wider rugby community with a view to widening the player base from the domestic clubs all the way up to elite level and want to make sure that every opportunity for sevens stars of the future to be identified and their potential to be developed is taken as recent examples like Lee Jones and Jim Thompson have already shown.”
While the club players begin to play a crucial part in the Scotland 7s squad, the side also draws upon the experience and skills of more familiar sevens internationalists and fringe professional players who, through the pro player draft, also feature regularly in Scotland’s domestic Premier leagues.
Among the young squad (which has an average age of 22 and features eight international debutants) is one of the Scottish Borders' leading exponents of sevens rugby, Selkirk’s 2008/09 Premier 2 and 2009/10 Premier 1 player of the season, Fraser Harkness.
However, despite not being capped internationalist, 25 year-old Harkness believes his regular experience of the Kings of Sevens circuit for almost a decade stands him in good stead for the demands of the international arena.
He said: “I absolutely love sevens. It’s where I made my name as a 16-year-old at Gala 7s and I think that training and playing sevens regularly will do the world of good for my own game and for the young players of Scotland.
“I never thought I’d get the chance to play for the Scotland 7s team but Graham Shiel phoned me during pre-season and invited me to mid-week squad sessions on top of my club commitments – I was never going to turn that down.
“The Scotland 7s team has developed academy players into top professionals in the past so the same could be done for the top players in the domestic game who can bring a lot of sevens experience. Yes, there's a difference between club and professional play, but fitness and stamina can be earned with months of hard work but skill and the ability to read and understand the game can take much longer.”
In Dubai, Scotland will face Commonwealth Games silver medalists Australia and bronze medalists South Africa as well as 2009 Dubai Shield winners, Russia, in Pool C before heading to George the following weekend where they will face Australia for a second time and home nations rivals Wales and France.
Harkness will line up alongside five further Premier club players:
Scott Riddell (Stewart’s Melville) comes with experience of the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup in Dubai and the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Watsonians’ Andrew Skeen, a member of Rob Moffat’s 2005/06 Scotland 7s team in Paris and London, recently returned from playing professionally in Italy for Amatori Rugby Milano (under the stewardship Italy’s all-time top try-scorer Marcelo Cuttita, twin brother of Scotland scrum coach Massimo) and Rugby Roma.
Team Northumbria’s Michael Fedo, already a capped sevens internationalist, is product of the Bell Baxter High School and Howe of Fife teams who achieved the remarkable Scottish Schools Cup and the Scottish Youth League Cup double in 2007 and the Scottish Schools’ Sevens championship victories of 2006/07 and 2007/08.
West of Scotland back-row Graham Fisken and Currie winger Dougie Fife are the last of the club contingent though Fife, who featured in last season’s Scotland under-20 6 Nations and Junior World Championship campaigns, also receives support from the sportscotland institute of sport network).
Both will both make their international sevens debuts in Dubai.
Debuts will also be handed to Glasgow Warriors full-back Peter Horne, of the same Bell Baxter/Howe of Fife dynasty as Fedo, fellow Warrior and Dundee-drafted outside back James Fleming, and Edinburgh Rugby pro players Ross Samson and David Denton (drafted to Boroughmuir and Hawick respectively).
Last season Denton was a regular in the same under-20s side as Fife and selection continues a successful spell for the Zimbabwean-born back-row, having debuted for Scotland A in their 25-0 win over the USA Eagles at Netherdale in November.
The 12-man squad is completed by elite development players Struan Dewar (Edinburgh Rugby/Heriot’s), who is recalled to the international sevens scene, and James Johnstone (Glasgow Warriors/Currie), another of the 2009/10 under-20 squad set to make his debut.
Shiel added: “I have picked a young squad and, having competed successfully in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, we now look forward to the building a squad for the years to come.
 
“This is a huge opportunity for all of the players travelling to experience the very highest level of seven-a-side rugby available and to test themselves and their skills against the best sevens players in the world. This is a huge but exciting challenge for the squad and management.”
After the opening two tournaments, the eight-event HSBC Sevens World Series will break until February before taking its unique brand of entertainment to New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong, Australia, England and Scotland, climaxing at Murrayfield on 28-29 May 2011.
Scotland 7s squad:
David Denton (Edinburgh Rugby/Hawick)
Struan Dewar (Edinburgh Rugby elite development/Heriot’s)
Michael Fedo (Team Northumbria)
Dougie Fife (Currie)
Graham Fisken (West of Scotland)
James Fleming (Glasgow Warriors/Dundee)
Fraser Harkness (Selkirk)
Peter Horne (Glasgow Warriors/Dundee)
James Johnstone (Glasgow Warriors elite development/Currie)
Scott Riddell (Stewart’s Melville)
Ross Samson (Edinburgh Rugby/Boroughmuir)
Andrew Skeen (Watsonians)
HSBC SEVENS WORLD SERIES: Dubai 7s draw
Pool A: Samoa, Kenya, Wales, Arabian Gulf
Pool B: New Zealand, Argentina, USA, Zimbabwe
Pool C: Australia, South Africa, Scotland, Russia
Pool D: Fiji, England, Portugal, France  HSBC SEVENS WORLD SERIES: South Africa 7s draw
POOL A: Australia, Scotland, Wales, France
POOL B: Samoa, Fiji, USA, Namibia
POOL C: New Zealand, England, Kenya, Russia
POOL D: South Africa, Argentina, Portugal, Zimbabwe 
 
2010/11 HSBC Sevens World Series schedule
Dubai, UAE – 3-4 December 2010
George, South Africa – 10-11 December 2010
Wellington, New Zealand – 4-5 February 2011
Las Vegas, USA – 12-13 February 2011
Hong Kong – 25-27 March 2011
Adelaide, Australia – 2-3 April 2011
London, England – 21-22 May 2011
Edinburgh, Scotland – 28-29 May 2011
TICKETS FOR THE EMIRATES AIRLINE EDINBURGH 7s ARE ON SALE NOW!
Two days, sixteen nations, 44 matches – one great weekend! For a fifth season the IRB Sevens World Series comes to Murrayfield with the Emirates Airline Edinburgh 7s being the eighth and final leg of a super season of international sevens. Scotland put in a stellar performance at the last event, bringing home the Plate after defeating some of the big hitters on the sevens circuit – Fiji, USA, Wales, South Africa and Argentina.  Samoa were the overall winners in Edinburgh, taking home the Ned Haig Cup, as well as the main IRB Sevens World Series trophy.
Tickets for this fast and furious festival of rugby are on sale now and are priced from ?5 for under-18s, ?10 for students and senior citizens and ?20 for adults. All tickets are ANY DAY tickets – valid for one day of your choice, either Saturday 28 May or Sunday 29 May. Keep checking www.edinburgh7s.com for some terrific ticket offers throughout the season!

This article was posted on 30-Nov-2010, 19:53 by Hugh Barrow.