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Emirates Western Force winger Nick Cummins has be passed fit after sustaining a shoulder injury in Randwick’s semi-finals win over Eastwood on Saturday and will board the plane to India in search of Commonwealth Games gold.
Cummins decision to play for Randwick helped elevate his Sydney based club into this weekend’s grand final but looked like it might have cost him an opportunity in Australia’s side to play in Delhi.
Fortunately for Cummins, and Australia's gold medal hopes, the injury wasn’t as bad a first feared and he’ll be fit to play, but it wasn’t such good news for Pat McCabe and Brian Sefanaia who have been ruled out of the side.
Coach Michael O’Connor has been forced to quickly re-jig his 12-man team after McCabe, the 2010 Super 14 Rookie of the Year, succumbed to a knee injury on the weekend while Manly’s Sefanaia sustained aa medial ligament tear in his right knee which will keep him sidelined for up to eight weeks.
Cummins’s Randwick teammate Shaun Foley has flown to Darwin as a replacement for McCabe while Ed Jenkins, twin brother of Emirates Western Force flanker Jono Jenkins, comes into the side for Sefanaia.
Foley was a key member of the Australian team during the first two legs of the IRB Sevens World Series last season while Jenkins featured in the final two events including Australia’s London Sevens-winning team alongside Bernard Foley, Nicholas Phipps and Force scrumhalf James Stannard.
Australia recorded their best result in over eight years on the IRB Sevens World Series circuit after finishing third overall and is expected to turn in an even better performance at the Commonwealth Games.
The squad has a chance to create history if they can finish with gold or silver as Australia has not medaled at the Commonwealth Games since securing bronze in 1998 when Rugby Sevens was first granted entry in Kuala Lumpur.
Australia has been drawn alongside Uganda, Sri Lanka and arch-rivals England, the 2006 silver medalists, who pose the biggest threat to finishing top of the pool and securing a favourable seeding in the quarter-finals.
The Australian Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens squad is finalising their preparations for the Games in Darwin at a week-long acclimatisation camp which includes a hit-out against world champions Samoa at the Oceania Sevens Championships in Darwin on 1-2 October.
Eight of the 12 members of the Games squad hold Super Rugby contracts for 2011.
22010 Australian Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens team
Robbie Coleman (20, NSW)
Nick Cummins (22, WA)
Bernard Foley (20, NSW)
Shaun Foley (24, NSW)
Liam Gill (18, QLD)
Ed Jenkins (24, NSW)
Pat McCutcheon (23, NSW)
Luke Morahan (20, QLD)
Nick Phipps (21, NSW)
Kimami Sitauti (19, QLD)
James Stannard (27, WA)
Lachie Turner (23, NSW)
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