Rugby World Cup Sevens: World Cup fever rolls into San Francisco as the United States gets its moment to shine
As one World Cup ends, the next begins as Sevens take centre stage in the latest move by World Rugby to tap into the American market - but will it work?
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Your support makes all the difference.Thought the World Cup was over? Think again.
Twenty-nine different nations will convene this week in San Francisco where World Cup fever continues, albeit of the oval ball variety, as the Rugby World Cup Sevens takes place in the United States for the first time.
Rugby union has made no secret of its desire to tap into the American market, be it sevens, the Premiership or test matches being taken across the Atlantic Ocean, but to stage an entire tournament there very much feels like the trial run for the US to host a full 15-a-side World Cup in the very near future.
With 24 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams as big as New Zealand, England and South Africa and as diverse as Zimbabwe, Uganda and Papua New Guinea will compete over the course of three days at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, who have kindly moved out for the week to play local rivals Oakland Athletics across the San Francisco Bay.
The World Rugby Sevens Series has enjoyed a home in the US ever since Las Vegas joined the circuit in 2004, but despite 14 years in the desert, it’s the Golden City that will bid to show that rugby does have a future in America.
What should stand the tournament in good stead is that World Rugby has altered the format this time around to increase the drama. Each women’s team will play in the round of 16, with the winners going through to the championship tier and the losers into the challenge competition. From there-on in, lose and you’re going home. With more teams in the men’s draw, there will be eight qualifiers that determines the round of 16, with the losers going into the bowl. From the last-16, the winners go on to the cup and losers into the challenge, and lose a game after that and – you guessed it – it’s goodbye to San Francisco.
This cut-throat nature should suit the nation that loves to back a winner, given that the eventual champions will have to win every match they play this weekend in order to take the spoils, whereas in previous tournaments the group stage format allowed teams to withstand the occasional blip along the way.
With such extreme punishments though, should a New Zealand or Fiji go out early on, that view of that format may change rather quickly.
Teams have also been honing their sides for the last two years in an effort to fully prepare for the World Cup. Long gone is the feeling that sevens was just a by-product of the game – something you played when the sun came out at the end of the season and wanted to maintain fitness without taking a battering every weekend.
England, for example, have sacrificed their 15s game to ensure that the best female players in the country have been on the Sevens Series circuit ever since the end of the Women’s Rugby World Cup last August. Not having the likes of Emily Scarratt, Natasha Hunt and following her emergence Jess Breach contributed to England losing their Six Nations crown to France earlier this year, but that will be worst the sacrifice if those three players join the rest of the squad as sevens world champions this weekend.
The men’s side have taken a different approach by centrally contracting their players to sevens and giving head coach and former England player Simon Amor the freedom to develop a core side may not be known across the land when it comes to Premiership rugby, but are specialists in the seven-a-side game.
The only problem with that is while leading Sevens Series try-scorer Dan Norton and England captain Tom Mitchell are series regulars, they are not as well-known as the likes of Wales duo Justin Tipuric and Hallam Amos, or flyers Semi Radradra, Josua Tuisova and the freakishly talented Leone Nakarawa who have been drafted into a Fiji squad that last month came within a whisker of winning the Series, only for South Africa to clinch the spoils in Paris – claiming a second straight title and the deserved tag of favourites heading to the World Cup.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a two-horse race though. New Zealand very much remain a threat even if they are no longer the all-conquering side that dominated the first half of this decade, while Australia and England have shown good form of late. The hosts will also be ones to watch, and with two lethal finishers in Perry Baker and Carlin Isles, they will be determined to show what they’re fully capable of after four consecutive, disappointing 13th-place finishes.
And then there’s Ireland. Three months ago they were a team making up the numbers, about to return to the Sevens Series on invitation after qualifying for the World Cup pre-round. Yet suddenly Ireland – just like in every other aspect of the game – are a force to be reckoned with. A third-place finish at the London 7s by defeating the hosts in a thrilling final was backed up with another strong showing in Paris, and although they will face South Africa if the beat Chile in their opener, they could easily be the ones who spring the biggest surprise.
Swiss watchmaker TUDOR is the Official Time Keeper of Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 in partnership with World Rugby. For further information visit www.tudorwatch.com.
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