Two’s the magic number for Australia’s men’s rugby sevens team as they attempt to nail down an Olympic berth in Fiji this weekend.

Australia can secure passage to Tokyo 2020 at the Oceania Sevens by winning their section of the tournament, where Tonga and Samoa shape as their two biggest hurdles.

A strong Australian squad will play Vanuatu and Nauru on Thursday before games against American Samoa and Tonga on Friday and if they both top their pool, a likely Olympic play-off against Samoa on Saturday.

The already-qualified New Zealand and Fiji will also play in Suva, but not against Australia until the Olympic quota spot has been decided.

Fixing a leaky defence and still possessing enough pace to punish oppositions has been Tim Walsh’s off-season focus and the coach has crunched the numbers to identify some clear benchmarks.

“Only once last year did we score four tries and lose and three tries usually gets you a win, so conceding no more than two tries is the magic number,” he said.

Ironically that one loss while scoring four tries came against Samoa in the quarter-finals of the Las Vegas Sevens.

Missed conversions hurt on that day though, with Samoa prevailing 21-20 despite only scoring three times themselves.

Samoa finished the world series in sixth, one place higher than an Australian outfit that has been eyeing these three days in Suva for months.

“To have a real target, a benchmark, has been nice and we’ve been extremely diligent in our preparations to make sure we walk away knowing we’ve done everything to have success here,” Walsh said.