Durban clubs head for Singapore Sevens

Two Durban rugby teams were scheduled to fly out of the city on Tuesday with vastly different expectations ahead of this weekend's 55th annual Singapore International Sevens tournament.

Harlequins, bolstered by the inclusion of Blue Bulls fullback Jaco van der Westhuyzen and Lions flank Wickus van Heerden, will be aiming to win a competition that features club teams with international players from Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Sweden.

South Coast Warriors, however, have more modest ambitions: having failed to land a major sponsor they have taken a largely untried combination.

Trevor Wright is their only player to have played at this level in the abbreviated code before, with survival first and foremost in their minds.

There were fears the tournament might not go ahead in the wake of the Bali bomb blast that left eight rugby members from the hosts, Singapore Cricket Club (SCC), either killed or missing.

"The overwhelming wish of the club, its rugby section and the victims' families was that the tournament should proceed in spite of what happened in Bali," said SCC rugby section convener Graham Burnett.

"One of the strong views we heard while discussing whether the tournament should go ahead was that those who died in the nightclub bombing would have wanted it to go ahead," said Nigel Stead, chairman of the SCC International Rugby Sevens committee.

Proceeds from the tournament - and from the Singapore Rugby Union/Standard Chartered Bank rugby dinner tomorrow - will go towards the SCC Bali Victims' Relief Fund.