The men’s and women’s 7s teams are on different paths this coming season, the women are preparing for the World Rugby 7s series which kicks off in Dubai on November 29th. Canada are in a pool with NZ, Japan and Brazil. As a buildup to the series the women are crossing the border on November 17th for a day of 7s in Portland, Oregon vs the USA and a PR7s all-star team. The press release for that is posted below.
The Canadian men will not be going to the Olympics, they lost to South Africa in the semi-finals 28-0 and then to Spain in the 3rd/4th place match 31-14. South Africa and Great Britain are playing in the final to determine the one Olympic qualifying spot. Canada did win their quarter-final match against Chile 24-19.
It was a sad day for the men’s 7s program as they lost to Spain 22-14 in the promotion/relegation game and they are out of the series for next year. We’ll cover the ramifications of that in an editorial during the week. Remaining on the series next year are Spain, Uruguay, USA and Kenya. The men now focus on the Olympic qualifier later this month.
NZ claimed the double in Singapore winning both men’s and women’s tournaments, Argentina were name league winners on the men’s side with most points accumulated over the season, NZ were league winners on the women’s side. The Canadian women finished 7th with a 17-5 win over Great Britain, the men finished 12th for their 5th tournament in a row, losing to Samoa 17-12.
The women’s team lost to Fiji in the 5th/6th final, 19-15, that result leaves them in 5th place in the standings with 72 points. The USA are ahead of them by 10 with 82 points and Fiji are behind them by 18 with 54 points. With one tournament left in Singapore, it’s likely Canada women will finish the regular season in 5th place before entering the final seeding tournament in Madrid. The final tournament will determine the winner of the series, not the total points in the series, a change by World Rugby. In Madrid the top 8 teams will be divided into two pools with 1,4,5,8 in one pool and 2,3,6,7 in the other pool. Currently that would put Canada in a pool with USA, GB and whoever finishes first, currently tied between Australia and NZ.
The Canadian women continue to roll along with a 4th place finish to follow the 3rd in Vancouver. They now sit in 5th place in the series standings, 2 points behind USA. The bottom four teams facing the relegation tournament are Brazil, South Africa, Japan and Spain. There are two tournaments left before the Madrid final, Hong Kong and Singapore. The pools for Hong Kong (Apr 5-7) have been announced, the women are in a pool with USA, Japan and Spain.
The women had their best tournament finish since the 2019-20 series. On Day 3 they lost to NZ in the cup semi-final 15-7 but rebounded to claim 3rd with a 19-14 win over Australia (video highlights). They now sit in a 4th/5th place tie in the standings with USA, both at 48 points. France are in 3rd with 62 points, NZ in 2nd with 66 points and Australia in 1st with 72 points. There are 3 tournaments left LA, Hong Kong, Singapore before the final tournament in Madrid where the top 8 teams will separate from the bottom 4 who will enter a relegation tournament. Currently the relegation teams for women are Brazil, Spain, Japan, South Africa.
The Canadian women lost to Great Britain 7-0 in the quarter-final but defeated Fiji 26-5 in the 7th/8th place game. That result puts Canada at 6th place overall in the standings with USA and Ireland jumping ahead of them.
It was a big improvement for the men, going from 12th in Dubai to 7th in Cape Town. For the women it was a slight step down from 4th in Dubai to 6th in Cape Town.
The women started Day 2 with a quarter-final win over Ireland 14-12, scoring for Canada were Charity Williams and Krissy Scurfield, Chloe Daniels kicked both conversions.