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Wales coach Paul John is delighted by his sides performances in the first two legs of the IRB Sevens World Series.

Although Wales didn’t make the Cup in either Dubai or George, they took home the Bowl at both tournaments and John feels his new side is blossoming into a strong outfit.

“Let’s be realistic, we’ve got eight brand new players in the squad. Eight players who have not played sevens tournament rugby before. But this bunch of youngsters have grown and grown tremendously on and off the field,” said John.

“They have pushed all the sides really close over the first two tournaments. We’ve played all the big teams over the past couple of weeks except for Kenya and England and to be fair, they have done themselves proud”.

The coach also feels like his side has surpassed his prospects and now the targets must change as his side pushes for top honours.

“We’ve got a lot more points than we did this time last year, so we’ve exceeded expectations from the first two tournaments so they can take confidence from what they have achieved.

“They have won both Bowls comfortably and two win two Bowls is difficult. They’ve shown they have the potential to get into the semi-finals of the main draw.”

Captain Chris Morgan was in agreement with his coach and knows there is plenty of work to do to develop the team.

‘It’s been a learning curve for us and we happy with the Bowl but the Cup is where we want to be. Although we’ve performed well, we’re not there yet,” said Morgan.

‘We’re going to work hard now and look at the things we didn’t do here and get in the Cup Quarter-Final’.