2022 Rugby Sevens World Cup

The 2022 Rugby Sevens World Cup kicks off in South Africa on Friday. Not that you'd know from most of the UK-based rugby media, or the unions, for that matter.

https://www.rwcsevens.com/tournament-format?lang=en

There are 16 Womens teams competing and 24 Mens teams. Both totals are larger than the number of teams you see competing at the Olympics, or in a typical HSBC World Sevens Series leg, so its a showcase for nations you don't usually see in any rugby context. For instance, the men's tournament will have Germany, Chile, Uganda and Uruguay, while the women's tournament features China, Madagascar and Brazil.

With the greater number of teams, there's no time for pool play, so it's an instant knock-out format, which has greater potential for upsets.

The 16 women's sides just go straight into matches against each other, with winners staying in the Cup competition, and losers playing against each other for Bowl and Challenge competitions.

In the Men's tournament, there is a Pre-Round of 16 unseeded sides, which will decide eight teams to play the eight top seeds. Ireland will play Portugal in the Pre-Round, and the winner of that match plays England. If I was an Irish supporter, I'd like the look of that draw.

If you read rugby sites in other nations, you can see discussion of injuries, squad selection, and likely prospects. Among the Home Unions, the IRFU has news on its site, and interviews, like the one below for the Women's team, on the Irish Rugby YouTube channel.



For England and the RFU? Crickets.

Plenty on the Red Roses match against USA at the weekend, but nothing on World Cup Sevens, a tournament which saw our Men's team take silver, when it was last held in the US four years ago.

That's a disgrace.

A sports cable channel in Jamaica has spent more time showcasing the 2022 Rugby Sevens World Cup than the RFU, BBC and Telegraph put together.



This also reflects poorly on World Rugby. Executives continue to talk up the importance of Sevens in growing the game, and reaching younger audiences but they can't even get one of their largest member unions, and associated rugby media in that country, to pay any attention.

While there's uncertainty about whether the Premiership season will start today, owing to events, the World Cup Sevens is under way.

There's a key match at 1:39pm UK time: England vs Ireland

Ireland handily dispatched Portugal, so the potential fatigue disadvantage of playing earlier, may well be offset by the advantage of an easy run out to get clicking. On form, Ireland are favourites to beat England, who have struggled to put a single game together, let alone a run of matches. Still, Ireland won't be taking it for granted.

England men's team went out before the Irish side, and had a moment of silence for the Queen. Women might have done it before their match against Spain, though didn't see it.

Ireland lead 7-0 at halftime.

Ireland much better at keeping the ball. Still, it's been closely contested, with mistakes on both sides.

Ireland are 17-0 up with 39 seconds left. The best England can hope for is a consolation score.

There's no shame in losing to a side with the talent of Ireland, but the England Sevens programme has been badly neglected. At the last World Cup, three England player made the team of the tournament.

England did indeed get a try, and Ireland progress.

You make some great points, mate. World Rugby need to decide what to do with 7s. If this is called a world cup, then World Rugby should treat it like a big event and invest in the commercial side. It certainly seems there is reduced coverage on the BBC, Telegraph web sites. Here in America there is also less visibility for 7s this year in general. Maybe a cost cutting measure, but no investment, no growth. Also, the USA team is having a down year as well.

But not as bad as England. That needs to be corrected because I think Rugby is better when England are competitive. Gives people something to root for....or against.

Ireland have done well in both women's and men's today with the Irish WIG 7s beating Brazil 24-12 to make the last eight. But they run into the reigning champions, New Zealand tomorrow at 7.05pm Irish time.

The MIG 7s will face either SA or Chile in their quarter final having dispatched England 17-5.

doctor_grey wrote:///Here in America there is also less visibility for 7s this year in general.  Maybe a cost cutting measure, but no investment, no growth.  Also, the USA team is having a down year as well...

USA went down 12-40 to Samoa, so they have also missed out on the Cup competition. Like England, the USA ended up with a first match against a strong team which happened to have been seeded low.

For a long time now, World Rugby have been hoping USA Sevens could win an Olympic medal, or World Cup, to give the game a boost. They went in with a good chance at the Rio Olympics, and San Francisco World Cup, but came up short at both. In retrospect, that was a missed opportunity, given the squad. They still finished sixth on the HSBC series this year, which means they haven't dropped out of contention as far as England, who were down in tenth. Still, they lack a bit of dog to win key matches right now.

South African women aren't in the same league as the men right now.

They were knocked out of the Cup yesterday, and just went down 12-14 to Japan in the Challenge competition.

England Men now playing Chile...

Ireland beat South Africa 24-14. They now face New Zealand in a semi-final match. Australia play Fiji in the other.

Ireland beat South Africa 24-14. They now face New Zealand in a semi-final match. Australia play Fiji in the other.

The Blitzbokke have been out of form. They failed to make the last eight in the final leg of the Sevens series, which cost them the title. Still, they were playing at home, so that's a quality scalp for Ireland. While all of the the remaining three teams would be favourites to beat Ireland on an average day, a World Cup is not an average tournament.

Very likely, most members of this forum have little interests in Sevens. However, the fortunes of a nation's sevens team often relates to the coherence of international rugby in that country as a whole. Steve Hansen made a similar point about performance at U20s level being an indicator of the longer term health of the senior side.

To take one example in Europe: the two most improved sevens sides are France and Ireland. Ireland planned a campaign to get on the Sevens circuit, and are now reaping the benefits. France decided to stop winging it, and can now be a handful for most top sides.

This relationship doesn't map one-to-one. The top sevens sides don't stack up in the same order as XVs. Nevertheless, a sharp rise or decline in Sevens fortunes can be an an indicator of the state of the whole progamme. I don't think it's a coincidence France and Ireland are also at the top the World Rugby XVs rankings. It's also a reason England might want to look why Sevens just doesn't work right now. The transition to Team GB is undoubtedly a factor but there's no guarantee a unified programme will work any better than what we are seeing right now.

It's game on for Ireland now

Early lesson for Ireland: they gave up possession from the kick-off, and NZ took advantage. Try not converted, so it's 5-0.

Smith for Ireland looking hurt.

Now Ireland don't protect their ball, and Ireland succumb to a counter ruck, which leads to a score. Also unconverted but it's 10-0.

Ireland are in a daze, and need a score.

Ireland stopped the bleeding and New Zealand got a yellow card for a cynical foul. Just before halftime, Ireland take advantage of the extra man, and get a try back. Not converted.

A second try gets Ireland back to all square. They are finally up to the pace of the game but New Zealand are back to full complement

New Zealand win, 17-10

Ireland will regret a poor start to that match. They had the talent to put NZ under pressure but ceded the initiative. At 10-10, there was a brief chance to exert pressure but a couple of penalties gave New Zealand the opening to get the go-ahead score.

Fiji have done Australia in the other semi-final, so Ireland will face Australia in the bronze medal match.

The final will be between New Zealand and Fiji.

You might think I'm labouring this point but that's two World Cup sevens finalists coached by a Scotsman and Englishman respectively.

If Home Nations coaches dominated XVs to the extent they do in Sevens, it would be a huge talking point, with the press wondering what we were doing to keep the best talent onside.

Meanwhile, the England and Scotland teams are also-rans at this World Cup, with an uncertain Team GB future ahead of us.

England beat Uruguay to take the Challenge, or "best of the rest" title.

Scotland, Wales, Kenya and USA were in this competition too but England did look the best of the bunch.

Excellent result for Ireland MIG 7s - they beat Australia 19-14 to take the bronze medal at the RWC 7s.

This has been the best tournament so far for the women's and men's - hopefully they keep building on this.

Up to 5th overall in the World Series for the year, and European Trophy champions too.

Think Ireland also came third in the first ever 7s world cup but yeah the current team were excellent, could well have won v NZ. Im not sure anyone would have beat Fiji though.

Collapse2005 wrote:Think Ireland also came third in the first ever 7s world cup but yeah the current team were excellent, could well have won v NZ. Im not sure anyone would have beat Fiji though.

That's a good take. Before the semi-final match, I thought NZ was the best opponent for Ireland out of the three possibilities. They just got caught cold, and lost the initiative. It's a mistake they didn't make against Australia, who are probably a harder team to beat that NZ right now, so that's a top drawer achievement.

Fiji probably would have been a bridge too far but we'll never know. The Irish sevens programme has been building for a while now but coach James Topping deserves a shout-out, because the fuss over Anthony Eddy could have been very disruptive.

Bronze is a decent return for Ireland. Shame we couldn’t have gone that but further.

Very good squad and a danger to any team.

Really enjoy the 7’s series. Some great players and very competitive.