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Malaysia head into this weekend’s Brunei Sevens, the second official leg of the IRB Asian Sevens Series, as heavy favourites for the title.

India, Brunei, Laos and the Philippines will all be vying for honours, with the tournament acting a key stepping stone for next weekend’s Brunei Sevens.

Korea was victorious in the opening leg of the series in Shanghai, whilst the Subic Sevens was downgraded from the series.

"Our objective is to win the Brunei championship, which if we accomplish would give a great boost to our preparation for the more crucial Borneo Sevens tournament here next week,” said Team Manager, KH Tan/

Tan said the team's involvement in the Brunei Sevens tournament serves mainly as a fitness preparation to ensure the team's peak performance for the Borneo Sevens championship where qualification points for the 2011 Sevens World Series will be up for grabs.

"We want to ensure we do our best in this tournament (Borneo Sevens) and taking part in the Brunei championship will help us reach the fitness level we need to be in to give the top Asian teams a worthy challenge come next week.

"Asian powerhouse teams such as Japan, Korea, China and Hong Kong will be competing (Borneo) and they are all expecting a strong challenge from us after the spectacular debut we made where we defeated Korea in the Sri Lanka championship final, last year," said Tan.

The Malaysian National team competed in last year's World Cup Sevens qualifiers in Hong Kong,finishing sixth and were runners-up in the plate event.

Spearheading Malaysian hopes at the tournament in Brunei will be three players originally from Fiji along with four Sabah athletes and three others from the peninsula.

The three Fiji-born players, Semi S. Sovunidakua, Nacani Seniu and Apenisa Vasutoga, have been living and training in the state after being brought in by the IJM Sandakan Rugby Club in 2001.

Since then, the sport has seen significant local development as the players were primarily engaged as coaches, but also play for the state and country through their eligibility having lived here for three years.

The IRB’s Regional Development Manager, Jarrad Gallagher, is still excited by the opportunities that lie ahead for the Series.

“It’s a great platform for our Asian teams to have competitive matches on a regular basis in a format that is similar to the IRB Sevens World Series,” said Gallagher speaking on the IRB’s Total Rugby Radio.

“I really believe in 2-3 years we will see a marked improvement and then you couple that together with the Olympics and what that will bring to us in terms of performance”.

Malaysia Squad for Brunei Sevens:

Jude Rampangajouw, Sabahans Lee Wei Ming (captain), Frankie Joilin, Azman bin Osman, Sahrin bin Dising and Nik Safuan Ismade bin Nik Man, Mohamad Amin bin Jamaluddin, Dinesvaran Krishnan and Mohd Fairuz bin Abdul Rahman from the peninsula.