Aussie Sevens squads set for Japanese test

Qantas Australian Men's and Women's Head Coaches Geraint John and Tim Walsh have named their squads that will take on Japan in Saturday's curtain-raiser to the Bledisloe Cup at ANZ Stadium.

Geraint John will use the game against a Japanese side - that was a core side in the World Rugby Sevens Series as recently as last season - to give his players a solid hit-out after a month of testing at Sevens HQ at Narrabeen.

"It's a really good opportunity to showcase the game to a huge crowd at ANZ," said John. "Japan are a good side who have a plenty of World Series experience behind them so it'll be a good test. We haven't done a huge amount of ball work as yet since returning to training last month but I know the players are excited at the chance."

Tim Walsh, meanwhile, has named an exciting squad to take on the Japanese Women's side with the likes of 2014 World Rugby Women's Sevens Player of the Year Emilee Cherry and 2015 World Player of the Year nominee Charlotte Caslick named.

Walsh said: "It's very much still the beginning of pre-season for us but this game gives us a rare chance to play in front of a home crowd. We'll be going out there to entertain - I don't expect us to be at our peak as yet - but we'll try our level best to put on a show."

The two Sevens matches will kick off from 6.30pm AEST.

Qantas Australian Men's squad to play Japan: Allan Fa'alava'au, Lewis Holland, Henry Hutchison, Greg Jeloudev, Ed Jenkins, Tom Lucas, Sam Myers, Jesse Parahi, Peter Schuster, James Stannard, Michael Wells

Qantas Australian Women's squad to play Japan: Nicole Beck, Charlotte Caslick, Emilee Cherry, Gemma Etheridge, Mahalia Murphy, Shannon Parry, Alicia Quirk, Taleena Simon, Tanisha Stanton, Emma Tonegato, Sharni Williams

To buy tickets to see the national Sevens teams in action, as well as the Bledisloe Cup at ANZ Stadium, click here