The Tonga 7s team believes they are capable of causing another big surprise at the Oceania 7s at the ANZ Stadium today.
Tonga finished runners‑up at last year’s tournament in Auckland, upsetting the Samoa 7s team in pool play before being well beaten by Australia in the men’s final.
Team manager Filo Akauola says most of those players are either unavailable or have moved overseas.
Tonga will play Olympic champions Fiji, Papua New Guinea, American Samoa and Nauru in pool play.
The top finisher in the men’s competition, excluding World Series core teams Fiji, Samoa and Australia, will earn a spot at the Wellington, Sydney and Hong Kong legs of the world series, with the next best team also going to Hong Kong .
The Fiji Men’s team will play their first game against American Samoa at 12.06pm today, they will take on PNG at 2.12pm, Fiji will then face Nauru at 4.39pm before facing Tonga at 7.27 tonight.
