Paul John will coach a Wales Sevens development side at the forthcoming Middlesex Sevens in aid of Amser Justin Time, the Welsh pancreatic cancer charity and the chosen charity of Colin Hillman’s family, the former Wales Sevens coach who sadly died of the disease two years ago.
Amser Justin Time was set up by actress and singer Shân Cothi in memory of her husband Justin Smith who died of the illness at the age of 42. The money raised by the charity will provide care and support for pancreatic cancer patients and their families in Wales, as well as funding the medical profession for investigation and research into pancreatic cancer.
The Wales side will take the name of the charity for the tournament which takes place at Twickenham on August 14 and £10 from the purchase of tickets for the event will go to the charity when tickets are bought via the link below: https://www.middlesexrugbysevens.com/affiliate/AmserJustinTime/165 or by going to www.middlesexrugbysevens.com and choosing Amser Justin Time on the charities section.
The tournament will be a chance for Paul John and his coaching staff to prepare for next season’s IRB Sevens World Series.
“It’s important you get as much competition as you can ahead of the Sevens Series but that’s often difficult due to pressures on players during the club and Regional season,” said John. “We will be using the Middlesex Sevens to blow away a few cobwebs, and look at a few players who could be involved this season.
“The tournament will allow us to play the likes of Scotland and England, along with high quality Premiership teams and the likes of Samurai, an international side of the highest quality.
“We are pleased with how our young squad fared on the IRB circuit last season. At the start of the campaign, the boys had only 20 tournament appearances between them. We made progress in terms of our world ranking and if we can keep a good number of those players together, mixed with some of the boys coming out of the Wales Under 20 squad, I’m sure we will step up another gear this season.
“Sevens is a great way of developing skills both in attack and defence and playing in front of a 40 000-strong crowd provides a steep learning curve.”
John has recently returned from a series of Sevens coaching workshops for teachers around Wales.
“Many schools around Wales use Sevens as part of their school sports curriculum, and compete at tournaments such as the Urdd Sevens and Llandovery tournaments. We organised the workshops in order to give the teachers some extra tools in the coaching of Sevens rugby and to promote the new WRU/IRB level 1 Sevens coaching course. We feel Sevens is a great environment to be involved in and if we can improve the standard of 17 and 18 year old Sevens players, that can only be a good thing for the competitiveness of our international Sevens squad.”
To purchase Middlesex Sevens tickets and earn cashback for Wales’ chosen charity, go to the Charities section of www.middlesexrugbysevens.com and click on the Amser Justin Time logo, or click on the below link:
https://www.middlesexrugbysevens.com/affiliate/AmserJustinTime/165
Adult and VIP tickets earn cashback, while kids go free (2 per adult ticket).
