I believe we can win the Rugby World Cup Sevens, and home support is going to be so important. All of the U.S. Sevens players want to make history at AT&T Park in San Francisco from July 20 to 22.
There is incredible excitement around the World Cup and I truly believe the sky is the limit for rugby in America. There will be a fantastic atmosphere at the matches and all the teams have their big dogs -- which means there will be some outstanding rugby for the fans to enjoy.
We all knew that the teams like Fiji and South Africa would have their leading players ready for San Francisco and that is what makes the matches so exciting, because you are going to have all of the top athletes in the game on show. I believe we are going to see sevens taken to a whole new level.
Having to pack our bags for the move to the San Francisco Bay Area after our final training session is when it really hit all of us in the squad.
We have our special kit for the World Cup and the jerseys are super skintight. I like to have it as tight as possible, which means sometimes I can feel a bit uncomfortable, but when I sweat it loosens it up. The Bay Area weather is going to be really nice, with things getting a bit cooler in the evening.
I have lots of family and friends coming to the World Cup including a group from my first rugby club, the Daytona Beach Coconuts. The Coconuts guys have been excited for months since they got hold of their tickets.
I am very happy with how I feel having recovered from my shoulder injury, and I like to keep a little something back so that I really let the turbo speed kick in when the matches arrive. Especially since we have some tough pool games to negotiate.
As a squad, we have been given an early look at the special Pioneers film that HSBC have produced which records our journey this season leading into the World Cup, and it has been bringing back lots of memories.
You can learn so much from looking back to where we started, to the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in Dubai and then the win in Las Vegas. I am so proud to have been part of the story which we now want to end with the big prize -- the Rugby World Cup Sevens title.
Having won the Las Vegas leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, we know what a difference home support can make and the fans went crazy when we won the trophy.
Now, we are going to get that same kind of backing because a lot more people started supporting us following the success in Las Vegas. There is nothing better than playing on home soil.
Everything has fallen into place for rugby in the U.S. this year, with hosting the Rugby World Cup Sevens, our victory in Las Vegas, the wins for the 15s against Scotland and Canada, the first season of MLR (Major League Rugby), and then the Rugby World Cup in Japan and the battle for qualification for the 2020 Olympics on the horizon.
There is so much more awareness of the sport, and this is all part of a much bigger journey for rugby in the U.S.