Tait: Canada’s World Cup path starts now

Tait, who was appointed after last year's World Cup, has already led Canada to top 7s titles already this season and he tell us his ambitions for his team for the competiton ahead. Canada are without a number of players who havedeclined to representtheir country in protest at Rugby Canadas pay-to-play system for women in non-World Cup years.

He answers our Q&A ahead of the event which kicks off on August 2nd involving Canada, USA, South Africa and England.

It has been a fantastic year for the Canada 7s team so far - but what work have you been doing with the 15s programme in the past few months for the Nations Cup?With our athletes spread across the country we have been having them focus on their strength and conditioning, fortunately for us this year has seen the development of some regional training groups. The girls who are in these are being coached and monitored by strength and conditioning experts. We also had a trial in early June with head to head match ups involving the top 45 players and I was very pleased with the skills shown and the pace of the trial. This was followed by the athlete's playing in the National Women's competition with their respective provinces in what turned out to be a very close and competitive series of games for both our senior and U20 athletes.

How experienced a squad are we likely to see at the tournament?I am sure like most of the other teams, in this first year of a new World Cup cycle, there is a mix of experienced athletes as well as some exciting new talent. We have good experience through the spine of the team and I believe we have found several athletes that will come in and push for selection right away in this group.

What are your goals for the tournament?Ultimately I want us to develop a new team culture over this tournament that will become the building blocks of our campaign to win the 2014 World Cup. We have begun working towards this with a lot of the group already as almost all of them have been involved in the 7s tournaments this year.

What are your thoughts on the three teams you will face?All three teams have different styles and present various challenges for us but our focus will primarily be on our developing own play through the Nations Cup assembly. Having teams of this calibre to compete against will provide an excellent measure of where we currently are and will help us determine where we need to improve moving forward.

Is there more pressure on you going into the competition as the host nation?England are World Cup finalists and are obvious favourites, hopefully having two tough matches against SA and USA will give us time to gel as a team to challenge them when we meet. Having this tournament on home soil is exciting for the players, their families and friends for the opportunity to see these great athletes up close. This can bring an element of pressure with it but I believe we have a group of athletes that will thrive under pressure.

Were you pleased with the talent on show at the U20s Nations Cup?I definitely was, we had a very young team compete this year at the U20 Nations Cup, with many eligible in two years time to compete again. We have some very athletic young women who are hungary to represent Canada and are dedicated to developing themselves to reach this goal.