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‘We can match it’: Australia star names the teams to beat in SVNS 2023/24
By Finn Morton
With the new-look SVNS series getting underway early next month, the opportunity to embark on a life-altering quest awaits the 12 best teams in the rugby sevens world.
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Championship glory awaits the team that is good enough to take it, but there are a number of hurdles that need to be overcome on the road to the series Grand Final in Madrid.
Dubai, Cape Town, Perth, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Hong Kong China and Singapore will host the best rugby parties in the world during the enthralling 2023/24 SVNS series.
As things stand, all nations are of course equal on zero competition points, but that all changes in Dubai. All teams will believe that they can match it with the best, including three serial champions.
In the history of the circuit formerly known as the World Sevens Series, traditional sevens nations New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa have dominated. Samoa and Australia are the only other overall champions in the competition’s decorated history.
Australia captain Nick Malouf expects those three regular champions to challenge for SVNS glory again in 2023/24, but has also tipped Argentina to be in the mix after a breakout season.
“If you look historically it’s New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa,” Malouf said on Stan Sport’s Rugby Heaven.
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“Argentina the last couple of years – it probably started when they picked up bronze at the last Olympics and from there they’ve just been able to keep a core group of guys together.
“Guys like (Marcos) Moneta, just rapid. Then you look at guys like (Rodrigo) Isgro (who) found his way into the Argentinian Rugby World Cup, the fifteens team, and played some games for them and he was sevens Player of the Year as well.
“They’re a great side but I think we’ve proven over the last couple of years that we can match it with those teams; winning it (the World Series) two years ago.
“Those games are always special because you know how tough they’re going to be and they’re the ones that you make some great memories in.”
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Australia have unveiled a star-studded select squad for the upcoming season which includes the likes of sevens regulars Henry Paterson, Maurice Longbottom and Dietrich Roache.
But among the talented list of names, it was practically impossible to look past the rugby genius that is Michael Hooper, with the former Wallabies captain making the switch to sevens.
Hooper, who was sensationally overlooked for Eddie Jones’ Australia squad for this year’s Rugby World Cup, will join the group in January and is expected to debut at the Perth SVNS.
“I think if you had told me a few years ago that we were going to have the opportunity to have ‘Hoops’ join us for an Olympic campaign I would have probably told you to wake me up because I must have been dreaming,” Malouf added.
“His CV speaks for itself. For me personally, a great guy to have just in terms of his leadership to help me out with those sorts of things.
“I know all the young boys get excited because he’s the pinnacle really, he’s done what so many kids dream of growing up watching Australian rugby.
“The chance to compete against him at every training session – he was out there this morning throwing his head over a couple of breakdowns. Straightaway he’s trying to figure out how he can use his strengths and I think he’s going to be a great fit for us.”
IRB 7s CURCUIT;
Hopefully the IRB WR 7s rugby circuit RE imagine their format even more and change the way they format their games very soon, so all the top teams play each other often. Otherwise why watch the 7s IRB rugby circuit when it’s not a real competition.
This new IRB format is a nonsense format and is much worse than old IRBs formatted circuit, where no teams form counts until the last round. Like having 40 odd practice games. As none of the six first rounds games really count for anything as only the top eight teams make the final anyway, which will mean the top for teams could come 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th in the IRBs 7s circuits FINAL round.
The old IRB ladder system was much better ranking system that found the most consistent team as the IRB’s FINALIST!
Especially when the past IRBS 7s format usually meant that only the top teams could win this bias tournament, which makes the IRB 7s circuit very boring!
Presently the IRB champions aren’t the real champions as a team of champions beats a big pool of evenly ranked teams at every IRB circuit, that aren't necessarily the teams that make final. Making the comp worth watching because presently winning on the IRB circuit depends on who you play, and even those games are all meaningless until the last round. Making the game a shame not a game!
By having all of their IRB 7s series top 12 teams put in TWO pools of six teams, ranked in each pool from the previous IRB sevens ladder standings. POOL ONE 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11: POOL TWO 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12:
Would create a real competition as then all the IRB circuit teams would regularly play each other. Then have all the teams by rank from each pool play the other pools teams by rank. Meaning Pool A’s ranked teams would play Pool B’s teams by rank, all the way down to the 6th ranked team in both Pools.
Ie Pool A 1st versus Pool B 1st, Pool A 2nd versus Pool B 2nd, 3rd versus 3rd – 4th versus 4th -5th versus 5th – 6th versus 6th. Which means each team would play six games each to get ranked correctly. Which would be great spectator wise. Which is 66 odd competitive games spread over two/three days.
Or 132 games in the men’s and women’s divisions held over 2/3 days, which should be accomplishable. With 14 manned squads for nutrition and two or three rugby fields at each location?
And by having the bottom four teams after the IRB circuit having to challenge the top two teams from the challenging series. Would create a pool of 6 teams playing in a round robin or three to make the top four as core teams. To RE merge with the IRBs top 8 IRB teams for the next years IRB circuit. Giving the new challenging teams ‘time’ to develop their game!
They also need to evolve the rules of the game to speed the game up a heap to save time to score more tries, the games have become predictable and boring!
Making the 7s IRB circuit very good to watch that would eventually pay for itself, ‘you’d think!
MENS POOLS:
POOL ONE;-----------------POOL TWO;
1st NEW ZEALAND------------------2nd ARGENTINA
3rd FRANCE---------------------------4th FIJI 5th AUSTRALIA-----------------------6th SAMOA
7th SOUTH AFRICA------------------8th IRELAND 9th USA---------------------------------10th GREAT BRITIAN
11th SPAIN----------------------------12th CANADA
WOMEN’S POOLS
POOL ONE;-----------------POOL TWO;
1st NEW ZEALAND------------------2nd AUSTRALIA 3rd USA--------------------------------4th FRANCE
5th IRELAND-------------------------6th FIJI
7th GREAT BRTIAN-----------------8th JAPAN
9th CANADA-------------------------10th SPAIN 11th BRAZIL-------------------------12TH CHINA
By Adopting these five 7s rugby ELVS would mean all the squads on the 7s rugby IRB circuit could win a tournament or two. And would stop the IRB circuit’s predictable boring outcomes?
Who wants to watch a one-sided comp where many squads can’t win it because of its rules? What are ELVs for. These rules would speed the game up and improve its spectacle dramatically. In the order they’re in?
The IRB sevens squads need to have 14 in their squads to have a seven manned bench to help rehydrate the team if these five 7s EVLs were used?
1/ Seven points awarded for a try under the posts, would save a lot of time, to get more tries.
2/ Use the drop goal-line drop-out. Which should already be a law as it’s very hard in sevens rugby to hold a player up over the goal-line, and that type of defence deserves a break. To get to kick the ball away from their goal-line!
3/ All conversions to be taken by the person who scored the try, even if it’s a forward because a scrubbed conversion by a forward would create plenty of time for an extra try or six. Making it far easier to get six quick unconverted tries to win, than to get 4 converted tries to ‘WIN’ a game.
4/ Having one-minute yellow cards for all deliberate knocks-ons and for some cynical game momentum changing fouls, that stops a try from being scored. Would suit any team as having two-minute ‘yellow cards’ is far too long and destroys the games spectacle.
5/ Having two-minute replacement red cards” for dangerous play, and put that player on TMO ‘RE view for a game or for a few game suspensions.