Scotland Sevens head coach Graham Shiel has made four changes to the squad which will travel to Wellington and Las Vegas next week for the next two rounds of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
Hamish Watson, Sean Kennedy and Byron McGuigan all come into the side with the chance to earn their first World Series and Scotland caps, while the fourth addition is Fraser Harkness, who has seven World Series tournaments to his name.
“I picked this squad taking into consideration their performances in training, as well as picking a few new faces to freshen things up and give the guys an opportunity to see what they can do," said Shiel.
"Overall, I believe the squad has a big physical threat, a lot of speed and agile players.
“The debutants are all very different players. Sean was very unfortunate having to withdraw from the last tournaments through injury, but he is fit, quick, has excellent passing skills and has a big big engine.
"Hamish as well, he is a bit of a buzz bomb with a high work rate and on the ball he is very aggressive. Finally, Byron has been with us for only a short period of time but he has fitted in really well and brings a different dimension to the game than we already have to offer. He is very good in attack and looks comfortable in defence.”
In pursuit of their first Cup quarter final this season Scotland will play New Zealand, Samoa and Japan in Pool A on Friday 4 February in Wellington.
They then travel to Las Vegas to compete in the USA Sevens tournament on 10-12 February.
“It’s an exciting time for us trying to design a game that works for Scotland, particularly up against some big physical teams in Wellington. We want to rise to the challenge and show these teams that we can compete at this level.
“We were happy with the consistency we played at in the first three tournaments in Australia, Dubai and South Africa, but we must go beyond that and get ourselves to a cup quarter final, so we can put ourselves under more pressure and evolve.”
Scotland squad: Hamish Watson, James Eddie, Adam Ashe, Scott Riddell, Michael Fedo, Sean Kennedy, Fraser Harkness, Colin Gregor (captain), Peter Horne, Byron McGuigan, James Fleming, Andrew Turnbull
