Rio 7s England = GB

Can anyone explain why the England 7s side were nominated to represent GB at the Rio Olympics as opposed to a combined GB side?

Was it easy just to have one side be called GB rather than try to combine Wales, Scotland and England after all its hard enough to combine for a Lions side which is bigger, how many is in a 7s Squad?

bedfordwelsh wrote:Can anyone explain why the England 7s side were nominated to represent GB at the Rio Olympics as opposed to a combined GB side?

Was it easy just to have one side be called GB rather than try to combine Wales, Scotland and England after all its hard enough to combine for a Lions side which is bigger, how many is in a 7s Squad?

England were nominated to qualify for the Olympics (on behalf of Team GB) during this season's 7s competition. The side at Rio will be combined Team GB.

Cyril wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Can anyone explain why the England 7s side were nominated to represent GB at the Rio Olympics as opposed to a combined GB side?

Was it easy just to have one side be called GB rather than try to combine Wales, Scotland and England after all its hard enough to combine for a Lions side which is bigger, how many is in a 7s Squad?

England were nominated to qualify for the Olympics (on behalf of Team GB) during this season's 7s competition. The side at Rio will be combined Team GB.

Ah ok, the way I read it was that it would be the England side as well.

bedfordwelsh wrote:

Cyril wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Can anyone explain why the England 7s side were nominated to represent GB at the Rio Olympics as opposed to a combined GB side?

Was it easy just to have one side be called GB rather than try to combine Wales, Scotland and England after all its hard enough to combine for a Lions side which is bigger, how many is in a 7s Squad?

England were nominated to qualify for the Olympics (on behalf of Team GB) during this season's 7s competition. The side at Rio will be combined Team GB.

Ah ok, the way I read it was that it would be the England side as well.  

I guess as the sides are spilt for the 7s competition that was the only way they could do it (ie nominate one of the Team GB sides - presumably England were deemed to have the best chance). As usual with GB, it's complicated (even more so, when you consider that NI players could potentially be chosen depending on whether Ireland get there from their qualifying tournament). I wonder whether they are considering drafting in regular 15s players like some nations will be?

Easiest way I guess to just the way I read it. I think it would be wrong to draft in 15 aside players as that would be a kick in the teeth for those who bust a gut on the 7s circuit but some Countries will do it.

How many are in the squad, like said its hard enough picking a big Lions squad trying to pick a smaller squad will be difficult. Has a coach been announced yet an idea?

I think the coach is Simon Amor (England's current coach).

Not sure on squad size but I imagine it will be similar to what was used for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 (though GB was split into constituent nations then). Not sure how much competitive game time Team GB will get before Rio.

Agree that 15s players should not be used.

I agree too that 15s players should not be used. But not only as its a kick in the teeth for the current 7s players, but beacuse these days the are enough 7s specialists that play year round as 7s specialists that there is no need for anyof the 15s guys. NZ, as far as I remember, has a squad of pro 7s specialists. That's all they play. In fact, I think when some of their 7s guys have played for 15s clubs sides they've often been pretty poor.

So keep the 7s guys as they're the best ones, unless you're a nation with no 7s experience or recent history. Then you might want to consider players from the 15 man game.

It's exactly the same situation as Scotland qualifying for Team GB in curling - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all participate in the World Championships, but only Scotland's points count towards GB qualification.

The coach hasn't been picked yet but the manager of Team GB is Joe Lydon.

Rugby Fan wrote:The coach hasn't been picked yet but the manager of Team GB is Joe Lydon.

Ah, maybe that's where I got muddled up. He was England's 7s coach a few years back, wasn't he?

Cyril wrote:

Rugby Fan wrote:The coach hasn't been picked yet but the manager of Team GB is Joe Lydon.

Ah, maybe that's where I got muddled up. He was England's 7s coach a few years back, wasn't he?

That's right. His appointment was the first time England started taking the sevens seriously (despite having won the inaugural sevens World Cup in 1993).

If we don't draft in a lot of fifteen a side stars - in which case all bets are off - then the small squad size is going to be a real constraint. There are some good sevens players in Wales and Scotland but English selections would be well worth their places, especially now they are finally showing a bit of form after a long dry spell. If players like Mitchell and Rodwell get put down first on the team sheet, then it's going to give an advantage to people who have played with them.

The only bloke I would have reservations about is Warwick Lahmert. He has an English mother, and British passport, but he was playing sevens for New Zealand until recently. I know Armor was having serious problems getting access to people for his squad, and couldn't resist the temptation to being in someone fully-formed and experienced. I'd have a had time seeing him turn out at a prestigious event like the Olympics, though.

Rugby Fan wrote:...If players like Mitchell and Rodwell get put down first on the team sheet...

Mitchell just got carried off on a stretcher as England went down heavily to USA in the Cup semi-final.

If I was Tom Croft I'd have been thinking about taking a year to play 7s and aim for the Olympics. He was out of contract, would be well suited to playing forward and he could have done with a year away from the collisions in 15s.

I doubt they'll be drafting in any non-7s players just for the Olympic period though.

My understanding was that team GB would be represented by the England 7s team, and that there won't be any players from other nations involved? Rugby Banter page said so, so it must be true....

Apparently World Rugby and the IOC said so.

Big shame if that is the case, especially since Scotland beat England!

As for the curling example, the best players in team GB are Scottish anyway so it wouldn't make any difference!

Edit - found this article

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/no-chance-of-a-team-gb-in-rugby-sevens-at-rio-after-ioc-and-irb-ruling-states-only-one-of-england-wales-or-scotland-can-represent-britain-9112299.html

RDW,

My understanding was that the Independent Journo misunderstood the ruling as to how it applied once qualified, and that a subsequent statement had indicated that any GB qualified player could appear at the Olympics.

with LT on this one, the exact statement from the IOC/IRB in the above article is:

“With regard to the qualification process for Great Britain, if more than one team from England, Scotland and Wales qualify to participate as core teams in the 2014/15 IRB Men’s Sevens World Series, then by no later than 30 June, 2014 the BOA must designate the lead team which solely will be able to obtain qualification for Great Britain to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.”

Seems fairly clearly to me to only indicate how the qualifying works. England was nominated as the team to obtain qualification for GB (rightly so, really), and duly qualified. The above quote doesn't mention anything about which players can then play in the actual Olympics...

Nothing has yet been decided about the composition of the GB sevens team.

When Ben Ryan was England coach (he now coaches Fiji) he often spoke in favour of using sevens specialistsexclusively, and appeared to think the England squad he had, would give GB the best chance of winning in Rio.

Joe Lydon, who has been named as manager of Team GB, ais on record agreeing about using sevens specialists but hasn't spoken about which individuals might be included, or who will coach them.

Interestingly, Ben Ryan appears to have changed his mind. Looking at England's fourth place finish in the series, he has wondered whether the current England personnel could realistically get better enough to challenge for gold.

If the answer is "No" - and Ryan clearly thinks it is - then he believes other players will be needed to strengthen the squad. He accepts some of the blame for not spending more time identifying new talent while he was in charge.