Powell looking for perfect balance
Powell included Springboks Francois Hougaard and Juan de Jongh in his 12-man squad for the first two World Sevens Series tournaments of the new season in Dubai and Cape Town. He will be hoping that those two players fit seamlessly among his seasoned Sevens players.
"I think all the teams are keeping their cards close to their chest and not willing to let anything out of the bag," said Powell.
"It's going to be important to get that balance right between trying out new patterns or trying out new structures and also new players, but also to be successful.
"I think you can't test too many things or you will find yourself in Bowl or Shield quarterfinal. That is definitely not where we want to play.
"I think one of the key components of Sevens is to have confidence going into tournaments and games, so it's definitely important for us to still be successful even though we are trying to test some players to see what they are capable of or try one or two new things in structure."
Powell knows how important it is for his team to get a good start in this weekend's opening leg in Dubai.
"It's going to be an interesting one. In the past you usually had the Gold Coast tournament before this one and it was almost a marker for you to see where you are at the beginning of the season and what things you can still work on.
"But Dubai is now that tournament for us – hopefully we can have a good start and hopefully we can get some momentum and confidence from this first tournament," he added.
