Women's sevens captains say competition is fierce and there are threats from all teams, as they get set for the second round of the World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series in São Paulo.

Arena Baureri is set for a carnival atmosphere with fans preparing for top quality rugby on Saturday and Sunday.

Series champions New Zealand are back after the December break and carrying the momentum from the last round in Dubai, where they beat Australia 19-17 in yet another fantastic final between the two sides.

"Everyone’s really excited to play on Saturday," said New Zealand captain Sarah Goss.

"We really regard (pool opponents) France as a top team now, USA have always been there and you never really know what Spain are going to bring. We think it’s a really tough pool but a good pool to start off the year.

"We just want to bring a good attitude into this week and build off the Dubai experience and hopefully make our way to the finals."  

France impressed in Dubai, upsetting England in the knockout stages. But captain Fanny Horta is not getting carried away – her team is taking it one game at a time. 

"It’s going good, and we’ve recovered well from the last round. It was very positive for us to beat England in Dubai, they are a top team. This weekend we have a tough pool with New Zealand, USA and Spain but we’re not focusing past that, we just want to take it one by one for the moment."

England captain Abi Chamberlain said: “There are threats everywhere. We’ve got Canada, Russia and South Africa in our pool. Every game is going to be a targeted game and we’ve done a lot of analysis. There’s also a lot of strengths for us to look into and examine how we are going to capitalise on them."

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USA captain Kelly Griffin says there were some positives from the last round in Dubai, despite their seventh place finish. She feels the added bonus of Olympic qualification at the end of the season is adding an extra edge to the series.

"The competition has definitely become a lot more fierce," said Griffin.

"At this stage, in any match anybody could win and there is so much parity between the teams now. That’s really exciting and will make for a very exciting Olympics when we get to that point. That Olympic qualification is definitely a huge motivation for every one of us to come out and show our best form."

This weekend’s tournament has the added attraction of local music star “Seba” who will entertain crowds at Arena Barueri on Sunday, ahead of the cup finals. All the action from Sao Paulo will be streaming live on worldrugby.org from Saturday morning, kicking off at 11:00 local time (GMT -2).