Wales welcome back quintet

Editor

Wales Sevens welcome back five players for the penultimate round of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series at the Stade Jean Bouin in Paris.

Core player Ben Roach and Cross Keys' Ethan Davies return after missing the Singapore leg while Angus O'Brien is back in the frame after regional commitments.

Dragons duo James Benjamin and Lloyd Lewis return to the World Series for the first time since the second leg in Cape Town and fourth leg in Sydney, respectively.

Wales will face Samoa on Friday and Fiji and Scotland on Saturday before the knockout stages on Sunday. Head coach Gareth Williams is hoping his side can return to the sort of form which saw two consecutive Cup quarter-finals for the legs in Vancouver and Hong Kong rather than the Singapore leg last time out, where Wales picked up just two points in the overall team standings.

"With the lack of space between the last tournaments and this weekend we knew it was going to be a challenge. Injuries have affected our preparation but we are back up to speed this week. We have not trained fully as a squad but with some late releases from the Regions we go to Paris with quite a fresh squad," explained Williams.

"With the Paris tournament staged over three days, we have the opportunity to focus on Friday. The boys are really excited about the Samoa game who are in excellent form on the back of their success in Singapore.

"We know how much of a challenge they will be as they are heading towards the Olympic repechage and it's going to be exciting to put ourselves up against them.

"As the series has progressed we have started to make inroads but the physicality caught up with us in Singapore and we fell off it – we need to re-set and get back to where we were in Vancouver and Hong Kong and build on those performances," he added.

Wales squad for Paris Sevens: Luke Treharne (c), Sam Cross, Ben Roach, Ethan Davies, Angus O'Brien, Luke Morgan, James Benjamin, Lloyd Lewis, Adam Thomas, Tom Isaacs, Lloyd Evans, Morgan Williams