There’s a new kid on the block, at least on paper. The World 12’s announced themselves this week and they have some heavy backers, such as All Blacks coach Steve Hanson who is a World 12s Ambassador. Here are some news links to get up to speed.
A couple of notable 7s tournaments coming up south of the border over the next couple of weekends.
First up is the USA National Rugby 7s Championship this weekend and it’s being hosted in Seattle. More info is available on their website: www.usaclub7s.com
It’s not quite the full lineup for the World Seven Series in this abbreviated COVID 2021 version. The two Canadian tournaments, Vancouver Sept 18-19 and Edmonton Sept 25-26, will be missing some of the top teams, there’s no Fiji, New Zealand, Australia or Argentina. So the only Olympic medalist attending is France on the women’s side. Another twist is that Great Britain will enter as a team, a first for the series.
from World Rugby
Following rugby sevens successful second appearance at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2021 will return with a pair of mens Series events, combined with womens fast-four tournaments in Canada, with Vancouver on 18-19 September followed by Edmonton on 25-26 September
from Rugby Canada
Rugby Canada is thrilled to confirm a unique opportunity for Canadian 7s fans with Canada being awarded the opportunity to host two HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series events in September. On-going work continues with governments, stakeholders and partners to receive final COVID -19 safety protocol approvals to ensure the safety of participants and attendees. These tournaments, if able to move forward, would mark the first Sevens Series events on Canadian soil since the HSBC Canada Sevens in Vancouver in March, 2020.
[ed. note Tokyo is 16 hours ahead of BC, times below are for Tokyo. A 9am start on Monday will be 5pm PT on Sunday.]
The schedules have been announced for the Rugby 7s events.
The pools were announced for the Olympic 7s, July 26-31 2021.
As expected it’s going to be a tougher journey for the men to make the QF than for the women. There are 12 teams in each competition, 8 make the quarter-finals. The top two finishers in each of the 3 pools plus the 2 best 3rd place finishers will go through.
It was touch and go whether the Six Nations would launch amid COVID but apparently a last minute decision by the French Sport Minister to relax the quarantine restrictions for the tournament allowed it to proceed.
from World Rugby
World Rugby has announced the match officials for the mens Guinness Six Nations 2021 which runs from 6 February to 20 March.
Ollie Nott packing down in the 5 man scrum wearing #8 helped the California based Rhinos to a perfect 5-0 record over the two days. They defeated the favoured London Royals in their final match, coming back at the whistle to score the winning try and add a two point conversion. One of the variations in the tournament is allowing conversion options varying from 1 to 5 points depending on the angle and distance.