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Canadian sevens stalwart Phil Mack will play in his 50th HSBC Sevens Series tournament this coming weekend after being named in the team to play at the Las Vegas event. The inspirational halfback becomes the first Canadian to achieve the half-century mark, and with 956 career points he looks likely of soon joining an even more exclusive club as only 12 players have previously hit the 1,000 mark.
Also achieving a milestone will be playmaker Nathan Hirayama, who hits the 40 tournament mark and is second only to Fiji’s Vatemo Ravouvou on this season’s point scoring list. John Moonlight captains the side in his 43rd tournament, and he is accompanied by Canada’s all-time leading try scorer Sean Duke, who returns from injury to appear in his 41st circuit stop.
Joining Duke in welcome returns from the treatment table are attacking duo Conor Trainor and Justin Douglas. Trainor has been absent since injuring a shoulder in the season opener at Dubai, while both Douglas and Duke sat out the Pacific tournament in Wellington and Sydney.
Four players remain unavailable with injury – Phil Berna, Nanyak Dala, Mike Scholz, and Liam Underwood. Luke McCloskey and Mike Mullins are left out after featuring in Sydney, while Mitch Santilli is only just returning to contention following a long ACL rehabilitation. Head coach Liam Middleton will reduce the squad from 13 to 12 later in the week.
Canada are currently in 12th place on the Series standings, trailing 11th place Scotland by six points. They are in Pool D in Las Vegas, along with South Africa, Wales, and hosts USA. All games will be streamed live on the official World Rugby HSBC Sevens Series website.
CANADA SEVENS
Admir Cejvanovic, Justin Douglas, Sean Duke, Mike Fuailefau, Lucas Hammond, Nathan Hirayama, Harry Jones, Pat Kay, Phil Mack, John Moonlight (capt.), Conor Trainor, Sean White, Adam Zaruba
POOL FIXTURES
Fri, Mar 4 – 16:35 PST, 19:35 EST – vs South Africa
Fri, Mar 4 – 19:36 PST, 22:36 EST – vs USA
Sat, Mar 5 – 14:08 PST, 17:08 EST – vs Wales
