2019-2020 World Sevens Series
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Superb ..from both our ladies and men..great way to head into Xmas..
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Nothing better than knocking over the blitz boks on their own patch in front of a big home crowd..
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@Bones said in 2019-2020 World Sevens Series:
Unbelievable, especially with so many errors. Colour me astounded.
Gotta admit I thought that the women would get it done but like you, not the blokes.
Don't make any bets this week Bonesy, your calls through this thread were amusing but terrible. I also had most of it wrong.
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@Snowy said in 2019-2020 World Sevens Series:
@Bones said in 2019-2020 World Sevens Series:
Unbelievable, especially with so many errors. Colour me astounded.
Gotta admit I thought that the women would get it done but like you, not the blokes.
Don't make any bets this week Bonesy, your calls through this thread were amusing but terrible. I also had most of it wrong.
I've discovered a brilliant new skill.
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@Bones said in 2019-2020 World Sevens Series:
I've discovered a brilliant new skill.
I actually used to do that. The guys I worked with were so terrible at investing that what ever they did, I did the opposite - "you're buying stocks and selling property?" Worked pretty well. I avoided the Ostrich farmer types anyway so they were out.
As for the sevens -Fiji will now win in Hamilton, the Saffas will take us out. Fitzpatrick and Williams will be shit along with McGB and you can say that you are vindicated and ahead of your time.
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New Challenger Series to boost rugby sevens’ expansion
The World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series, a new and exciting international rugby sevens competition, will be launched in February 2020 to boost rugby sevens’ development across the globe. With sevens experiencing exponential growth from a performance and fan engagement perspective, World Rugby is launching men’s and women’s Sevens Challenger Series to develop the next generation of rugby players and take rugby sevens to new nations, further growing the popularity and participation of sevens following its hugely impactful Olympic debut at the Rio 2016 Games.The men’s series will feature 13 core teams from the six World Rugby regions who will compete over two rounds alongside three invitational teams. The top eight core teams after the two rounds will then compete in the final playoff tournament for a spot in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, replacing the bottom placed core team in the World Series in the following season. This promotion and relegation system will provide a clear and consistent development pathway for teams ready to shine at the highest level of rugby sevens. The two legs of the inaugural World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series will be played in South America in Viña del Mar, Chile (15-16 February, 2020), and Montevideo, Uruguay (22-23 February, 2020).Thirteen nations have earned their place in the Challenger Series by finishing as the top ranked nations who are not already competing in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series at their respective regional sevens competitions in 2019. The teams who will compete in the 2020 World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series are Brazil, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Tonga, Uganda, Uruguay and Zimbabwe. They will be joined by three invitational teams from the Americas in Colombia, Mexico and Paraguay. The final play-off tournament will be hosted alongside the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens event on 3-5 April, 2020.A separate announcement for the women’s Challenger Series will be made in due course. -
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@KiwiMurph Yes, and unlike Dubai and Cape Town, they'll play 5th place and 7th place play-off matches.
Teams can't afford to lose pool matches anymore. Only the four 1st placed men's teams and the three 1st placed and the best 2nd placed women's teams after the pool stage, will be able to win the tournament, so no second chances.
It's a bit odd that they change the format of the Sevens Series after two legs of the men's Series and three legs of the women's Series, and didn't make this change at the start of the Series.
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Err ... why?
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@booboo Good question and I've tried finding an explanation from World Rugby for the changes and I've not been able to find one.
They started reducing the number of games at the Glendale Sevens - the first leg of the women's Series in October - by no longer letting the bottom half of the participating nations play for the Challenge Trophy and by no longer playing the 7th and 11th place play-off games.
In both the men's and the women's tournament of Dubai and Cape Town, they didn't play the 5th and 7th place play-off games.
Now, they're changing it again for the Hamilton 7s.
According to the "standings page" on the WR website, men's teams finishing 7th and 8th should get the same number of competition points (10); also the teams finishing 11th and 12th should earn the same number of points (5), just like the nations finishing 15th and 16th (1 point each), but if you look at the actual standings, that's not what they have done. They've given 11 points to the 7th ranked team and 10 to the 8th ranked team; 6 points to the 11th ranked and 5 points to the 12th ranked team; and the points awarded to the lower ranked teams are also different.
They've also given points to the women's team differently from described.
Apparently, they awarded competition points to teams that didn't get to play the 5th and 7th place play-off games based on the ranking after the pool stage of the tournament, but it's still weird that they didn't do it as described.
Even if the new competition format is well-considered, their communication about it definitely is not.
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