Sixteen captains today gathered at the Super Tree Grove in the iconic Gardens by the Bay in Singapore ahead of an exciting weekend of action at the eighth round of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.

The HSBC Singapore Sevens is set to be a massive weekend of rugby as 52,000 fans are expected to come through the doors on 28 -29 April. The 2018 series has been the most competitive to date with five different teams winning the first five rounds and just 41 points separating the top six teams.

Current series leaders, South Africa have been incredibly consistent so far this year making three cup finals and narrowly missing out on a few other occasions. However, with only one tournament win this year, they'll be looking to go that one step further this weekend and continue to build a gap at the top of the series table.

"I think this weekend and the other two tournaments left in the series in London and Paris are all going to be important." said the Blitzboks veteran, Kyle Brown

"It's important we maintain the consistency that we have, that's exactly what we spoke about at the beginning of this season but also to go that one step further and get into the finals and finish them well at the end of the day."

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Another team that have been in excellent form this year is Fiji, they're the only team with more than one win on the series so far (Hamilton, Canada, Hong Kong).

Despite this, they sit second in the table behind South Africa but will take confidence in the fact they've beaten them four out of the six times they faced them in the playoff stages this year. Another tournament win would be huge for their title hopes and they'll know that going into the third last event of the 2018 series.

Kenya have had a pretty successful series reaching the last two cup finals consecutively but ultimately falling short against Fiji on both occasions. However, this tournament has added significance to them, just two years ago they won their first HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series event here in Singapore. 

"For the guys who were here (in 2016), it was all about brother hood, playing for the man standing next to you, putting in the hard work and dedication and that's what made the difference." said Kenya's Oscar Ouma

"There's definitely a lot of positive sentiment, the fact that we won our first tournament here brings a lot of good memories and makes it a good place for us to play"

The stage is set for another competitive series event. Can the Singapore Sevens provide another new tournament winner? If history is to go by it's certainly a possibility. One thing is for sure, the Singapore Sevens will be rocking this weekend.

The action gets underway at 11:00 local time on Saturday (GMT+8) with Scotland taking on Australia. Follow the action on www.worldrugby.org/sevens and @WorldRugby7s