The sight of USA Eagles wing Takudzwa Ngwenya rounding Bryan Habana was one of the stand out moments in the IRB Rugby World Cup 2007 and this weekend the flyer will be in action at the Emirates Airline South Africa Sevens in George.

Ngwenya joined the squad this week along with Mike Palefau as replacements for Jone Naqica (dislocated hip) and Milemoti Pulu (ankle) who were injured in Dubai and USA Sevens coach Al Caravelli hopes his presence may work in his team-mates favour.

“I think it creates a couple of things for us, if he [Takudzwa] gained some notoriety and some fame in the World Cup by beating Bryan Habana, teams here are going to probably want to make a name for themselves and want to try to either stop him or show somebody that they can go around him,” Caravelli told irbsevens.com.

“I think he is a very intelligent player so he knows that to play together as a team he will create space for his team-mates as well, so he is not just an individual player he is a team player and he just compliments our game completely.”

Caravelli first noticed Zimbabwean-born Ngwenya playing for the second team of a third division club at the US National Championships and, impressed with his athletic balance, invited him to their next Sevens camp.

Work ethic leads to explosion

“He is a perfect example of a young man who is willing to work very hard, so he made some huge strides in nine months on getting into a gym and doing all the hard work that one person can do individually.

“He worked very hard on his fitness, on his strength and it just showed in everything and in his testing, his speed work, his endurance and that made him faster too, hence why he was able to make the World Cup squad.

“There was an unfortunate player who got hurt, another who couldn’t go because of work commitments, so he made the most of it and was in the right place at the right time to shine … [but] there is not one player on the team that doesn’t have a strong work ethic.”

Ngwenya, for his part, is happy to be back on the Sevens scene after his French club Biarritz released him for this tournament and credits the abbreviated form of the game with making him even faster on the pitch.

“Sevens has helped me in exploding, like running fast and seeing little gaps like in fifteens and I end up seeing stuff and just going for it, so Sevens has helped me to go really fast, that’s the best way that I can explain it really,” Ngwenya said.

Future potential there for USA

The USA failed to win any of their matches in Dubai, but on their first ever visit to George both Caravelli and Ngwenya hope that if they play to their strengths, the wins will come their way and lay the foundations for a bright future for USA rugby.

“A lot of people joke around that the US is a sleeping giant and we know we have been in a coma for a long time, but I think all the players on this squad and our pool of 30 that we are looking at, all have their eyes on the World Cup in 2009.

“We are not getting ahead of ourselves because we still need to qualify in 2008, but a lot of them have made sacrifices in not going professionally on certain teams, so that they could play Sevens full time this year and into the World Cup.

“So I think that with this squad, if it stays together, we can really see some big things for the US down the road.”

For now though, Caravelli and Ngwenya’s focus will be on their Pool B encounters with France, Fiji and their north American rivals Canada, who beat them in last weekend’s Bowl quarter-final in Dubai.