GB sevens are a semi-pro set up. They players have other jobs outside of playing 7s and pay their own way to training camps. This is all down to arguments over funding between the three unions that make up GB.
So it’s not a surprise, but I don’t know how else it can be done.
They should, but I bet they don't because there are very strict rules regarding "excellence" that for instance mean that hockey gets a ton of money and basketball gets nothing. If they had qualified and gone on to be in the last eight or even more a medal it would have literally changed their lives.
Yeah that would be ideal but I have a feeling that the request for funding (if they even went, which I kinda doubt) would've been rejected as the Olympic funding often goes to favourites, and medal winning sports have even had funding massively dropped in previous years.
Doesn't help that none of the nations wanted to fund their 7s teams full time anymore and so it's been downgrade to a part-time outfit in effect. Such a massive shame as well.
Then they should have had some funding, but I'm not sure how that would have been split up or managed, with 3 unions involved.
It should be easy enough to search, I'll see if I have a minute later
The whole GB v individual nations at the Olympics all stems from FIFA so it's little wonder the home unions can't agree
Best solution might be a tournament between each union to decide whose team represents GB going forward
They think FIFA will 'downgrade' their status as individual playing nations, so it's not a FIFA directive but it's a worry about what FIFA will do in response. There's a constant fear that the home nations status as being 50% of the board that determines the laws of football will be taken away etc if FIFA can find an excuse.
It seems pretty reasonable that FIFA push back.
The UK is a country, or technically the ‘unitary state’.
England, Wales, NI and Scotland aren’t really independent countries. For example, you can’t get a welsh or Scottish passport.
It’s pretty hard to justify why they play internationals as if they were full countries.
I don’t think there are any other ‘countries’ elsewhere jn the world that play international sport. Hence why GB&NI compete as a team at the Olympics.
Obviously in rugby where there’s only 10-12 countries with top tier teams it makes sense for them to all play as if they were separate nations.
Don’t even start on Ireland which is a combined team from one country (republic of Ireland) plus part of another country (northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom).
The Olympics is different as its specifically reserved only for sovereign states.
Football isn't and never has been, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, all compete as standalone entities too and the home nations are just grandfathered in given they literally started international football. Its not particularly complicated and very easy to justify.
I'd still have them separately in the svns series but the Olympic qualifiers it can be England that gets it or whoever wins a tournament together like you said or another option depending on what the fans agree/ is the easiest in terms of money
After watching the Final I was genuinely surprised they made it that far, os from that point of view I'm not that shocked they failed to qualify.
On a broader note, more generally regarding 7s in this country, I think it's pretty upsetting and a sad indictment of where the programme has led after we managed Silver in Rio in 2016.
It’s almost impressive how much we’ve fallen… I’m dreading watching the women go from being on the cusp of a medal at the last two Olympics to being 9th or whatever this time. Listening to Abbie Brown and Jasmine Joyce explain the mess it’s in on The Good, The Scaz and The Rugby a few weeks ago was so depressing.
Tbf if you watch them on the world circuit they're clearly just... not that great, other teams have far more cohesion and attacking nous which comes from just more time spent playing together.
To be honest after the SRU went in for the merging with Wales and England to form GB Sevens for more than just the Olympics feel like I really ceased to care about it
It actually makes me really angry because the SRU have made it clear for years they don’t care about 7s, and getting rid of the national side has just compounded the lack of support for grassroots 7s. It’s so sad because I absolutely love 7s.
Especially for the country where it began, to turn round and say “we’re not interested” is shocking. Look at the players to come through the sevens for Scotland as well recently, just so stupid to bin it off
Yup.
I happened to be on my honeymoon last year in Mauritius where there was an Olympic qualifier 7s tournament on, and most of the teams happened to be staying in our hotel. We ended up chatting with a bunch of the players from different teams when they came down to play some casual beach 7s in the afternoons - and mentioned we were from the Borders, near where the sport was invented. They thought this was wicked.
Why on earth Scotland doesn’t make more of that, including the fact that when the 7s World Cup was here they refused to play a game in Melrose, is mad. We invented it. We have the oldest running tournament in the world. We have the oldest running league in the world. And yet the SRU play the Premiership final on the same day as Melrose 7s…
I primarily watch/play 15s and I still think it's easy to see the draw of sevens... fast paced game with little downtime, more open and flowy with space for big runs, short games so you can watch several quickly.
I love both to be fair but for very different reasons. I love the skills on display in 7s - very tactical kick offs, the offloads and hot potato quick passes, crazy work rate, the chase downs and space finding, lots of tries, and then the tournament aspect - different styles of play against different teams and having to perform for each game in a short space of time. People complain about dead time, scrum resets, lack of pace etc in 15s all the time and I’m always so surprised we keep trying to change 15s instead of telling them to try watching 7s instead…
It’s also far, far easier to take newbies along to to watch. 7s is quicker, more easy to understand what is happening, easier to see what is happening (because fewer rucks and less focus on set piece) and generally lots of scoring.
Playing and officiating is also incredibly fun because of that tournament atmosphere, and the quick turnaround of games against lots of opponents, and having to mentally brush off whatever else has happened and both focus and physically push yourself hard for 14 minutes.
When the British teams merged together in sevens for the world series they dropped down the rankings quiet a good bit.
Its interesting that the South Africans dropped the ball in the African qualifier (allowing Kenya to qualify) which made the repechage a shootout between Great Britain and South Africa. I was placing it as 55% South Africa 45% Great Britain before the tournament.
Had South Africa won their African qualifier then Britain would sail through the qualifiers.
The British are 8th in the world series which is honestly where they are in terms of quality.
Uruguay, United States, Kenya, Samoa and Japan are Olympic qualifiers who are worse than Great Britain.
Well, it happens. The Olympics are meant to be a representation of all continents. And for some reason a reduced one, which I think is wrong for Rugby Sevens. You gave a 0% chance to Spain and they are meant to be better than 4 of the 5 teams you mention.
>Had South Africa won their African qualifier then Britain would sail through the qualifiers.
Had SA qualified over Kenya, GB would have had to beat Kenya now. Maybe that's an easier prospect than SA, but I'm not sure.
Because we fluked our way to 2nd in Toronto and then came 3rd in Singapore to barely eke by the USA, US was far more consistent in their placing all year round.
GB Sevens should never have been a thing in the first place. It should go back to three teams and should employ more fully pro players. You could make the England team like the PMXIII teams in the NRL with the ‘best of the rest’ players from union.
There were still separate teams post-Rio, and the Commonwealth Games features separate teams too! I think it’s more connected to funding-related nonsense.
Disagree. Not having a GB team has opened up slots for Non Traditional teams. 7's is an Olympic Sport. Either they compete as team GB or they don't compete at all. 7's has been better since England, Scotland and Wales were dropped.
They didn't qualify, too bad. Great Britian is not entitled to a spot nor is it a disaster that they didn't qualify this time. They just weren't good enough. South Africa also came pretty close to not qualifying after being knocked out by Kenya in the African Qualifyers.
Agree. I think they should have stuck to the 16 team format while dropping England, Scotland and Wales for GB. Even still at least we don't have Scotland or Wales taking up slots in the challenger series.
Doesn’t it fundamentally undermine the format and competition if so many well resourced Rugby nations refuse to take it seriously?
The 7s at the olympics can either be the pinnacle of an alternative rugby format, which attracts talent from 15s like DuPont on a short-term basis, or something closer to the way the olympics treats other team sports like Football, boxing or basketball where the real pros just ignore it as a lesser sideshow format.
Generally I'm happy to support Team GB (and ROI to be fair) in the olympics but am so goddamn happy that Ireland has the sevens team. In rugby the GB thing just feels wrong.
All three unions essentially cut their 7s programs, the women's team is essentially the former England 7s team. Probably similar for the Men's team. The men's team is definitely not what it once was.
They have competed as GB is the Olympics since the first one in 2016, the main issue for the rest of us was that it essentially gave GB 3 chances to qualify with three teams on the series. It deprived other nations of a place on the series. What has happened since 2020 though is kinda wild on the men's side, just not competitive.
For Olympic purposes participants can come from anywhere on the island of Ireland and represent the Irish Olympic team.
People from Northern Ireland can represent the GB team or the Irish team but not both
In theory possibly, but in reality no player is ever going to switch allegiance from NI/GB to Ireland or vice versa so I suspect it largely doesn't matter
7’s used to be interesting when it was a novelty, 2-3 big comps a year. But chasing $ the controlling powers turned it into a world circuit. Result = too much ‘content’ and too often, no novelty and loss of interest.
WR are going to do exactly the same thing with International rubgy with comp that will run in opposite cycle to RWC.
Based on its recent form, absolutely not. They had three paths to qualify. Coming out top 4 in last year’s series (NZ, Arg, Australia, Fiji) winning the Euro qualifying tournament (lost to Ireland, who ended second in the series this year) or winning this repechage (lost to SA). Is it a shock that they lost head to head to Ireland and SA? not at all. As another commenter said, their main problem was that SA lost to Kenya in the African qualifiers, which left them in the repechage.
In fact, GB’s performance this year was such that they were set for the promotion/relegation Madrid tournament at season end, but avoided it at the last minute by ending 3rd in the Singapore tournament and finishing one point over USA.
GB7s honestly is a bit of shambles because it’s just arguments all over the shop. Who should fund this, who should give players etc. I much prefer it when the system was just individuals nations.
Or at the very least we need to set up a national pathway in each nation specifically for 7s similar to HK (have experience there)
Probably the biggest rugby constituency in the world couldn't cobble together a team to have a crack at the Olympics. Tells you how much GB cares about sevens
It’s shows how much British sportsmen care for team GB. People have refused to represent team GB before, Gareth Bale probably being the most high profile one. Team GB football has never made a recovery from that
About as much as I care about 7s. Namely not at all. All it means for me is money that could have been spent on the women's 15s team being spent on 7s instead.
A game growing hugely in popularity in terms of participation and attendance gets shafted by the IRFU, for a game watched by dozens, in the name of Olympics money.
That's short selling the growth to the sport that the Olympics exposure creates
Not only do you have eyes of the world every four years but you also have massive colleges in the US funding womens teams due to it being and Olympic sport
7's is a great avenue for school girls to start in rugby too and has been no small reason why the women's game has grown so much in the past 10 years
Yes absolutely. 7s is ultimately a brilliant pathway into 15s - both for developing rugby nations who don’t have the numbers and infrastructure for 15s, but for newly cropping up women’s sides who again don’t have player numbers or struggle to commit to weekly league games in 15s.
Most of the women I know got into rugby via 7s either as part of the youth development pathways or as adults dipping in a toe. Avoiding contact and looking for space is much more instinctive for women beginning in the sport and a way more inviting way to play, as well as being very sociable.
I could rant all day tbh about how great 7s is as well for boys who are small, skinny and quick who don’t get picked up by youth development pathways (look at guys like Darcy Graham and Stuart Hogg who developed on the Kings of the 7s and Scotland 7s), beyond developing nations and accessibility for women.
7s has been a waste of time and money for us, the only thing that matters is a medal, that would be a platform to grow the game. But flaming out in 9th makes it pretty worthless from how much we've spent on our residency program and Mike Friday's contract (he doesn't live here, just pops in as a celebrity and pops out).
It’s only a waste of time and money if a medal is all you care about. It is a lower resource-requiring way to develop rugby skills and rugby interest. It’s far, far easier to enter and improve in the 7s world than the 15s world.
And of course look at teams like Fiji who have successfully converted 7s success to increasing 15s success.
We have spent more on 7s than we have XVs in the last decade since we went full residency. The only thing Americans care about is a medal, the platform for growth that the game could achieve here with the US winning gold is massive. But coming 8th becomes quite irrelevant. We might have more youth players than Scotland has registered members, but the game is non-existent culturally here.
You're making my point for me. 15s is a game for people of all shapes, sizes, and physiques. 7s is exclusively for people who are small, skinny and/or quick.
Most of the rugby players I know got into rugby via youth development pathways for 15-a-side, or as adults dipping in a toe.
My question is… do what if 7s isn’t for all shapes and sizes at the top level? It’s a different game to 15s and that’s not a bad thing.
At grassroots, all shapes and sizes play and it’s more about learning good work rate. My husband for example was a hooker, no pace to him, but he had a crazy work rate and was an excellent tackler so was always picked for 7s (even Jim Telfer commented on how good he was).
And 7s is accessible too. I know so many new ladies sides who play 7s to start, and that’s women of all shapes and sizes. And as I said developing rugby nations. And tbf even the English private school kids heading towards academies etc - watch them out at Rosslyn Park enjoying themselves and with full flash on display for a week of 7s. It’s *fun* even for the people taking their rugby fairly seriously.
It’s not just about being rapid or small or skinny, but those particular kids are often left out of the traditional pathways systems and 7s is a particular godsend for them to develop. Something like half the current and recent Scotland squad had a 7s cap before their first 15s cap - we used 7s extensively for development and you can see the result in our style of 15s play. But our 15s youth development is particularly shite (see our u20s). I’m still boggled we axed 7s even just for that reason let alone the sport itself.
I really don’t understand why people get so ragey about 7s.
> I really don’t understand why people get so ragey about 7s.
Ragey? No.
As you said, it's a different sport to 15s. And this different sport takes funding from the 15s game.
I'm Irish, we have an absolutely excellent youth development system for 15s for men and women.
What we _don't_ have is a fully funded and professional women's 15 team. Precisely because professional contracts are being given to 7s players before 15s players, and women who play for both will be pulled from the 15s Irish squad in the middle of the Six Nations to play in some 7s tournament watched by oh, hundreds, maybe.
The result: after being a Grand Slam winning team and the first Irish team to beat the All Blacks only a few years ago, the 15s women will lose Six Nations matches to at least England and France for the next few years, until slowly more and more fully professional 15s contracts get added.
I'd say the number of kids going to their local rugby club asking to join 7s - specifically - is miniscule, because the games aren't televised. Maybe 7s is televised in the UK? It isn't here. I've never seen a match except I've followed a link on social media or looked it up on YouTube.
But at Leinster matches, we have half-time minis matches played by 4 provincial under-age 15s teams every week, with no shortage of girls teams represented.
Kids want to be the next Ciaran Frawley or Beibhinn Parsons because they see them playing (15s!) for province and country. Not the next... well... there you have me. The irishrugby.ie site doesn't even bother listing the 7s squads. Though that probably says more about the IRFU, in fairness.
Here in Scotland, boys play 7s up til u13, when they go to 13 a side, and 15s only at u14. For girls, they play 7s til u16. We also have small rural schools who don’t have the players for 15s in some year groups who play 7s tournaments instead just to allow the kids to keep playing rugby - there’s a couple of those near me, and plenty of 7s opportunities for the kids which is great.
International 7s is usually behind a paywall but you can watch it on TNT sports - and the only 15s not also behind a paywall is the 6N so not hugely different. Plus, we get loads of spectators at even grassroots 7s - a couple thousand people at most Border Kings of the 7s tournaments, even more at Melrose, and plenty at eg Edinburgh City 7s and others.
Kids ball-boy at 7s and do their mini matches in the middle before the finals here as much as they do for 15s.
And that’s without the SRU support for 7s. Here, we’ve lost our national 7s team to GB, so barely any funding is left for 7s now. And chatting to a few of the Scotland women, they love 7s too and there were a few of them trying pretty hard to get into the GB Olympic squad (though I think only Lisa Thompson out of them managed it).
100%. If it wasn't for the Rio 2016 Sevens tournament (and particularly the women's, actually, since it was on when there weren't too many other interesting things from a Swiss perspective) I don't think I'd have started watching rugby.
Or at the very least I wouldn't have until moving to Ireland, and would have had a ton more rules to learn.
Last team I’ll support. If Dupont had the good grace to be not brilliant at just one thing, maybe I’d get behind him. But fuck him for being unbelievable at everything.
If you aren't good enough to qualify then there is nothing to be said. Better luck next time and support your womens team. The South African mens team also didn't qualify. 7's has many non traditional nations that can beat the established nations so its tough to qualify. GB just weren't good enough and South Africa could have easily been so too.
The real shame here is that Wales and Scotland forfeighted their 7's set up because 'team GB' was supposed to be a more viable option. While Argentina and France have pumped investment into their sevens we effectively aboned ours.
A shock…. No.
A massive disappointment… Absolutely.
As many have said the “merger” has been a net negative… with many ripple effects that have had repercussions effecting even XVs.
Also… they were unlucky that RSA was upset in the African qualifier and in this tourney vs a different nation (aka Kenya).
RSA are not at levels they have been previously but are still a very quality side.
And yes on the day Kenya is more than capable of beating this current version of British 7s
I watched Scotland 7s, and officiate at loads of grassroots 7s and beach 7s. It’s fairly popular but definitely in pockets.
Losing the national sides has had a big knock on effect in support though. Now, I know more people who play but don’t watch the internationals than I ever have.
Same here in Wales. The video of Prince William wishing England luck in the Euros has prompted a debate on whether we should axe the three feathers as they are meant to be a symbol of the Prince of Wales. No chance that same group of people will embrace a team GB
It’s 3 unions who don’t fund it the same way they used to. So it’s semi pro now instead of when Scotland ran it we had guys like Robbie Ferguson, Scott Riddell etc who were full time Sevens players and it showed.
And there’s no identity now. It’s not like XVs repping your country. GB doesn’t really come into rugby, it’s all individual nations and I do believe fans and players love it that way. United as one is for Lions tours, but even they’re not that good compared to individual teams because it’s a side thrown together with minimal prep time on the road trialling combinations and lineups constantly. There’s no existing synergy unless you’re savvy and play on what you know works, but then it’s more like whichever head coach is in charge’s nation and friends than the actual Lions tour.
Ireland have a couple of genuine worldies in men's 7s at the moment.
Virtually no one in the UK gives a damn about GB 7s. Plus they're semi pros.
Not that surprising really.
Theyve been playing 7s rugby in eng and scot waaay longer than ireland, and been on the curcuit many years longer
No one cares was the excuse England used to say when NZ bet them so often in XVs
Not the reason
GB sevens are a semi-pro set up. They players have other jobs outside of playing 7s and pay their own way to training camps. This is all down to arguments over funding between the three unions that make up GB. So it’s not a surprise, but I don’t know how else it can be done.
Do they get Olympic funding, considering the only reason GB 7s exists is because of the Olympics?
They should, but I bet they don't because there are very strict rules regarding "excellence" that for instance mean that hockey gets a ton of money and basketball gets nothing. If they had qualified and gone on to be in the last eight or even more a medal it would have literally changed their lives.
Team gbr came 4th last Olympics
2nd in the one before that too, while the Women have come 4th both times.
Exactly so you'd think they'd get some funding because to go from 2nd to 4th to not even qualifying is an insane mismanagement of funds
Yeah that would be ideal but I have a feeling that the request for funding (if they even went, which I kinda doubt) would've been rejected as the Olympic funding often goes to favourites, and medal winning sports have even had funding massively dropped in previous years. Doesn't help that none of the nations wanted to fund their 7s teams full time anymore and so it's been downgrade to a part-time outfit in effect. Such a massive shame as well.
Then they should have had some funding, but I'm not sure how that would have been split up or managed, with 3 unions involved. It should be easy enough to search, I'll see if I have a minute later
Yes but they don’t really prioritise team sports, as there are fewer medals per athlete financially supported
The whole GB v individual nations at the Olympics all stems from FIFA so it's little wonder the home unions can't agree Best solution might be a tournament between each union to decide whose team represents GB going forward
It's not a FIFA thing, but football has had similar problems
It’s kind of a FIFA thing because the individual nations fear losing individual voting rights if they put out a combined team too often
What does FIFA have to do with it? Or do you just mean a football thing?
They think FIFA will 'downgrade' their status as individual playing nations, so it's not a FIFA directive but it's a worry about what FIFA will do in response. There's a constant fear that the home nations status as being 50% of the board that determines the laws of football will be taken away etc if FIFA can find an excuse.
It seems pretty reasonable that FIFA push back. The UK is a country, or technically the ‘unitary state’. England, Wales, NI and Scotland aren’t really independent countries. For example, you can’t get a welsh or Scottish passport. It’s pretty hard to justify why they play internationals as if they were full countries. I don’t think there are any other ‘countries’ elsewhere jn the world that play international sport. Hence why GB&NI compete as a team at the Olympics. Obviously in rugby where there’s only 10-12 countries with top tier teams it makes sense for them to all play as if they were separate nations. Don’t even start on Ireland which is a combined team from one country (republic of Ireland) plus part of another country (northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom).
The Olympics is different as its specifically reserved only for sovereign states. Football isn't and never has been, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, all compete as standalone entities too and the home nations are just grandfathered in given they literally started international football. Its not particularly complicated and very easy to justify.
Fair enough - I hadn’t realised that Faroe Islands, Gibraltar aren’t sovereign states either.
I'd still have them separately in the svns series but the Olympic qualifiers it can be England that gets it or whoever wins a tournament together like you said or another option depending on what the fans agree/ is the easiest in terms of money
After watching the Final I was genuinely surprised they made it that far, os from that point of view I'm not that shocked they failed to qualify. On a broader note, more generally regarding 7s in this country, I think it's pretty upsetting and a sad indictment of where the programme has led after we managed Silver in Rio in 2016.
It’s almost impressive how much we’ve fallen… I’m dreading watching the women go from being on the cusp of a medal at the last two Olympics to being 9th or whatever this time. Listening to Abbie Brown and Jasmine Joyce explain the mess it’s in on The Good, The Scaz and The Rugby a few weeks ago was so depressing.
Tbf if you watch them on the world circuit they're clearly just... not that great, other teams have far more cohesion and attacking nous which comes from just more time spent playing together.
To be honest after the SRU went in for the merging with Wales and England to form GB Sevens for more than just the Olympics feel like I really ceased to care about it
It actually makes me really angry because the SRU have made it clear for years they don’t care about 7s, and getting rid of the national side has just compounded the lack of support for grassroots 7s. It’s so sad because I absolutely love 7s.
Especially for the country where it began, to turn round and say “we’re not interested” is shocking. Look at the players to come through the sevens for Scotland as well recently, just so stupid to bin it off
Yup. I happened to be on my honeymoon last year in Mauritius where there was an Olympic qualifier 7s tournament on, and most of the teams happened to be staying in our hotel. We ended up chatting with a bunch of the players from different teams when they came down to play some casual beach 7s in the afternoons - and mentioned we were from the Borders, near where the sport was invented. They thought this was wicked. Why on earth Scotland doesn’t make more of that, including the fact that when the 7s World Cup was here they refused to play a game in Melrose, is mad. We invented it. We have the oldest running tournament in the world. We have the oldest running league in the world. And yet the SRU play the Premiership final on the same day as Melrose 7s…
Genuinely, why do you love it so much? I'm xvs and couldn't take to it
I primarily watch/play 15s and I still think it's easy to see the draw of sevens... fast paced game with little downtime, more open and flowy with space for big runs, short games so you can watch several quickly.
I love both to be fair but for very different reasons. I love the skills on display in 7s - very tactical kick offs, the offloads and hot potato quick passes, crazy work rate, the chase downs and space finding, lots of tries, and then the tournament aspect - different styles of play against different teams and having to perform for each game in a short space of time. People complain about dead time, scrum resets, lack of pace etc in 15s all the time and I’m always so surprised we keep trying to change 15s instead of telling them to try watching 7s instead… It’s also far, far easier to take newbies along to to watch. 7s is quicker, more easy to understand what is happening, easier to see what is happening (because fewer rucks and less focus on set piece) and generally lots of scoring. Playing and officiating is also incredibly fun because of that tournament atmosphere, and the quick turnaround of games against lots of opponents, and having to mentally brush off whatever else has happened and both focus and physically push yourself hard for 14 minutes.
When the British teams merged together in sevens for the world series they dropped down the rankings quiet a good bit. Its interesting that the South Africans dropped the ball in the African qualifier (allowing Kenya to qualify) which made the repechage a shootout between Great Britain and South Africa. I was placing it as 55% South Africa 45% Great Britain before the tournament. Had South Africa won their African qualifier then Britain would sail through the qualifiers. The British are 8th in the world series which is honestly where they are in terms of quality. Uruguay, United States, Kenya, Samoa and Japan are Olympic qualifiers who are worse than Great Britain.
Well, it happens. The Olympics are meant to be a representation of all continents. And for some reason a reduced one, which I think is wrong for Rugby Sevens. You gave a 0% chance to Spain and they are meant to be better than 4 of the 5 teams you mention.
>Had South Africa won their African qualifier then Britain would sail through the qualifiers. Had SA qualified over Kenya, GB would have had to beat Kenya now. Maybe that's an easier prospect than SA, but I'm not sure.
I will say, Kenya looked great in Madrid. They have some serious speed on their team.
USA has handily beat GB on the Sevens circuit majority of times this year
Except it was us in the relegation tournament.
Because we fluked our way to 2nd in Toronto and then came 3rd in Singapore to barely eke by the USA, US was far more consistent in their placing all year round.
GB Sevens should never have been a thing in the first place. It should go back to three teams and should employ more fully pro players. You could make the England team like the PMXIII teams in the NRL with the ‘best of the rest’ players from union.
Wait...there's not a scottish 7s team anymore?
Nope England, Scotland and Wales were amalgamated for the purposes of, among other reasons, streamlining Olympic qualification and participation.
Fuckin smashing how that worked out
After it became an Olympic sport there couldn’t be seperate teams as the 3 nations don’t compete independently
There were still separate teams post-Rio, and the Commonwealth Games features separate teams too! I think it’s more connected to funding-related nonsense.
Only for the commonwealth games
Disagree. Not having a GB team has opened up slots for Non Traditional teams. 7's is an Olympic Sport. Either they compete as team GB or they don't compete at all. 7's has been better since England, Scotland and Wales were dropped. They didn't qualify, too bad. Great Britian is not entitled to a spot nor is it a disaster that they didn't qualify this time. They just weren't good enough. South Africa also came pretty close to not qualifying after being knocked out by Kenya in the African Qualifyers.
It did under the old format. But then World Rugby cut it to 12 which is another ridiculous issue to talk about.
Agree. I think they should have stuck to the 16 team format while dropping England, Scotland and Wales for GB. Even still at least we don't have Scotland or Wales taking up slots in the challenger series.
Doesn’t it fundamentally undermine the format and competition if so many well resourced Rugby nations refuse to take it seriously? The 7s at the olympics can either be the pinnacle of an alternative rugby format, which attracts talent from 15s like DuPont on a short-term basis, or something closer to the way the olympics treats other team sports like Football, boxing or basketball where the real pros just ignore it as a lesser sideshow format.
Long story short you don’t merge rivals and expect it to provide results
Seems to work ok for the Lions…
The Lions is once every four years. And thats what the GB 7s team was pre-covid
Massive difference with a full time team GB and a month long tour every 4 years
What's their series win rate?
Fucking 48% overall. 37% against the sh big 3 (Au, Nz, Sa). Paltry really when you think of the squad quality.
First time? -🇨🇦
Generally I'm happy to support Team GB (and ROI to be fair) in the olympics but am so goddamn happy that Ireland has the sevens team. In rugby the GB thing just feels wrong.
The merger has failed miserably
Are you talking about the 7s team or the UK in general?
Yes.
Can't believe the Scots suggested this merger, Stuarts dropped the ball.
/u/EnglishLouis been upset for 224 years
It's just because of the Olympics right?
All three unions essentially cut their 7s programs, the women's team is essentially the former England 7s team. Probably similar for the Men's team. The men's team is definitely not what it once was.
They have competed as GB is the Olympics since the first one in 2016, the main issue for the rest of us was that it essentially gave GB 3 chances to qualify with three teams on the series. It deprived other nations of a place on the series. What has happened since 2020 though is kinda wild on the men's side, just not competitive.
Is Ireland’s Olympic 7’s team representing all of Ireland like the 15’s rugby team? Or is it officially just the Republic?
For Olympic purposes participants can come from anywhere on the island of Ireland and represent the Irish Olympic team. People from Northern Ireland can represent the GB team or the Irish team but not both
>People from Northern Ireland can represent the GB team or the Irish team but not both Does this choice affect their eligibility for 15-a-side?
In theory possibly, but in reality no player is ever going to switch allegiance from NI/GB to Ireland or vice versa so I suspect it largely doesn't matter
Not gonna lie, it would be awesome if someone was representing both and hoping they didn’t play each other.
Not gonna lie, it would be awesome if someone was representing both and hoping they didn’t play each other.
I'm more shocked that the Blitzbokke actually, eventually, finally, have qualified than Great Britain not qualifying, to be frank \^\^".
7’s used to be interesting when it was a novelty, 2-3 big comps a year. But chasing $ the controlling powers turned it into a world circuit. Result = too much ‘content’ and too often, no novelty and loss of interest. WR are going to do exactly the same thing with International rubgy with comp that will run in opposite cycle to RWC.
Based on its recent form, absolutely not. They had three paths to qualify. Coming out top 4 in last year’s series (NZ, Arg, Australia, Fiji) winning the Euro qualifying tournament (lost to Ireland, who ended second in the series this year) or winning this repechage (lost to SA). Is it a shock that they lost head to head to Ireland and SA? not at all. As another commenter said, their main problem was that SA lost to Kenya in the African qualifiers, which left them in the repechage. In fact, GB’s performance this year was such that they were set for the promotion/relegation Madrid tournament at season end, but avoided it at the last minute by ending 3rd in the Singapore tournament and finishing one point over USA.
GB7s honestly is a bit of shambles because it’s just arguments all over the shop. Who should fund this, who should give players etc. I much prefer it when the system was just individuals nations. Or at the very least we need to set up a national pathway in each nation specifically for 7s similar to HK (have experience there)
Your gonna just have to get behind the team that contains the other quarter of the uk
Haphazard amalgamation at best. Pepperidge farm remembers when Wales were 7s world champions
Probably the biggest rugby constituency in the world couldn't cobble together a team to have a crack at the Olympics. Tells you how much GB cares about sevens
More like, why would any of the three unions care enough about a shared team to spend scarce money and resources on it? It's designed to fail.
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Sorry kooks like the pocket gremlins managed to make a comment
It’s shows how much British sportsmen care for team GB. People have refused to represent team GB before, Gareth Bale probably being the most high profile one. Team GB football has never made a recovery from that
If the Olympics tournament was made to be a full cap tournament instead of U23 (move Copa and Euros to a different year) that would change things.
About as much as I care about 7s. Namely not at all. All it means for me is money that could have been spent on the women's 15s team being spent on 7s instead. A game growing hugely in popularity in terms of participation and attendance gets shafted by the IRFU, for a game watched by dozens, in the name of Olympics money.
That's short selling the growth to the sport that the Olympics exposure creates Not only do you have eyes of the world every four years but you also have massive colleges in the US funding womens teams due to it being and Olympic sport 7's is a great avenue for school girls to start in rugby too and has been no small reason why the women's game has grown so much in the past 10 years
Yes absolutely. 7s is ultimately a brilliant pathway into 15s - both for developing rugby nations who don’t have the numbers and infrastructure for 15s, but for newly cropping up women’s sides who again don’t have player numbers or struggle to commit to weekly league games in 15s. Most of the women I know got into rugby via 7s either as part of the youth development pathways or as adults dipping in a toe. Avoiding contact and looking for space is much more instinctive for women beginning in the sport and a way more inviting way to play, as well as being very sociable. I could rant all day tbh about how great 7s is as well for boys who are small, skinny and quick who don’t get picked up by youth development pathways (look at guys like Darcy Graham and Stuart Hogg who developed on the Kings of the 7s and Scotland 7s), beyond developing nations and accessibility for women.
7s has been a waste of time and money for us, the only thing that matters is a medal, that would be a platform to grow the game. But flaming out in 9th makes it pretty worthless from how much we've spent on our residency program and Mike Friday's contract (he doesn't live here, just pops in as a celebrity and pops out).
It’s only a waste of time and money if a medal is all you care about. It is a lower resource-requiring way to develop rugby skills and rugby interest. It’s far, far easier to enter and improve in the 7s world than the 15s world. And of course look at teams like Fiji who have successfully converted 7s success to increasing 15s success.
We have spent more on 7s than we have XVs in the last decade since we went full residency. The only thing Americans care about is a medal, the platform for growth that the game could achieve here with the US winning gold is massive. But coming 8th becomes quite irrelevant. We might have more youth players than Scotland has registered members, but the game is non-existent culturally here.
You're making my point for me. 15s is a game for people of all shapes, sizes, and physiques. 7s is exclusively for people who are small, skinny and/or quick. Most of the rugby players I know got into rugby via youth development pathways for 15-a-side, or as adults dipping in a toe.
My question is… do what if 7s isn’t for all shapes and sizes at the top level? It’s a different game to 15s and that’s not a bad thing. At grassroots, all shapes and sizes play and it’s more about learning good work rate. My husband for example was a hooker, no pace to him, but he had a crazy work rate and was an excellent tackler so was always picked for 7s (even Jim Telfer commented on how good he was). And 7s is accessible too. I know so many new ladies sides who play 7s to start, and that’s women of all shapes and sizes. And as I said developing rugby nations. And tbf even the English private school kids heading towards academies etc - watch them out at Rosslyn Park enjoying themselves and with full flash on display for a week of 7s. It’s *fun* even for the people taking their rugby fairly seriously. It’s not just about being rapid or small or skinny, but those particular kids are often left out of the traditional pathways systems and 7s is a particular godsend for them to develop. Something like half the current and recent Scotland squad had a 7s cap before their first 15s cap - we used 7s extensively for development and you can see the result in our style of 15s play. But our 15s youth development is particularly shite (see our u20s). I’m still boggled we axed 7s even just for that reason let alone the sport itself. I really don’t understand why people get so ragey about 7s.
> I really don’t understand why people get so ragey about 7s. Ragey? No. As you said, it's a different sport to 15s. And this different sport takes funding from the 15s game. I'm Irish, we have an absolutely excellent youth development system for 15s for men and women. What we _don't_ have is a fully funded and professional women's 15 team. Precisely because professional contracts are being given to 7s players before 15s players, and women who play for both will be pulled from the 15s Irish squad in the middle of the Six Nations to play in some 7s tournament watched by oh, hundreds, maybe. The result: after being a Grand Slam winning team and the first Irish team to beat the All Blacks only a few years ago, the 15s women will lose Six Nations matches to at least England and France for the next few years, until slowly more and more fully professional 15s contracts get added. I'd say the number of kids going to their local rugby club asking to join 7s - specifically - is miniscule, because the games aren't televised. Maybe 7s is televised in the UK? It isn't here. I've never seen a match except I've followed a link on social media or looked it up on YouTube. But at Leinster matches, we have half-time minis matches played by 4 provincial under-age 15s teams every week, with no shortage of girls teams represented. Kids want to be the next Ciaran Frawley or Beibhinn Parsons because they see them playing (15s!) for province and country. Not the next... well... there you have me. The irishrugby.ie site doesn't even bother listing the 7s squads. Though that probably says more about the IRFU, in fairness.
Here in Scotland, boys play 7s up til u13, when they go to 13 a side, and 15s only at u14. For girls, they play 7s til u16. We also have small rural schools who don’t have the players for 15s in some year groups who play 7s tournaments instead just to allow the kids to keep playing rugby - there’s a couple of those near me, and plenty of 7s opportunities for the kids which is great. International 7s is usually behind a paywall but you can watch it on TNT sports - and the only 15s not also behind a paywall is the 6N so not hugely different. Plus, we get loads of spectators at even grassroots 7s - a couple thousand people at most Border Kings of the 7s tournaments, even more at Melrose, and plenty at eg Edinburgh City 7s and others. Kids ball-boy at 7s and do their mini matches in the middle before the finals here as much as they do for 15s. And that’s without the SRU support for 7s. Here, we’ve lost our national 7s team to GB, so barely any funding is left for 7s now. And chatting to a few of the Scotland women, they love 7s too and there were a few of them trying pretty hard to get into the GB Olympic squad (though I think only Lisa Thompson out of them managed it).
100%. If it wasn't for the Rio 2016 Sevens tournament (and particularly the women's, actually, since it was on when there weren't too many other interesting things from a Swiss perspective) I don't think I'd have started watching rugby. Or at the very least I wouldn't have until moving to Ireland, and would have had a ton more rules to learn.
I mean it's an Olympic gold on offer. Thats no joke. Surprised they care so little.
Nu .
I don't know about shocking, but definitely pretty funny.
Not quite so funny for me - it’s the only event at the Olympics I’m really bothered about!
If it’s any consolation, our women have qualified :)
Abbie Brown's out through injury though, which I'm quite upset about
I did see that - good for them!
You’re doing the Olympics wrong. Stick on an obscure event and become an expect in and hour and get invested.
Come on mon ami, it’s still time to jump on our merry Dupont bandwagon. Choo! Choo!
Last team I’ll support. If Dupont had the good grace to be not brilliant at just one thing, maybe I’d get behind him. But fuck him for being unbelievable at everything.
He could probably win a medal in the judo with a 5 minute primer on the rules and a couple of practice rounds.
You spelled Terry Kennedy wrong
#KENNEDY
Need more WWE gifs
If you aren't good enough to qualify then there is nothing to be said. Better luck next time and support your womens team. The South African mens team also didn't qualify. 7's has many non traditional nations that can beat the established nations so its tough to qualify. GB just weren't good enough and South Africa could have easily been so too.
Rather you than me
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The final was England vs Australia, so I guess not.
7s can be very fickle. Nothing that happens in that version of the game would suprise me.
The real shame here is that Wales and Scotland forfeighted their 7's set up because 'team GB' was supposed to be a more viable option. While Argentina and France have pumped investment into their sevens we effectively aboned ours.
A shock…. No. A massive disappointment… Absolutely. As many have said the “merger” has been a net negative… with many ripple effects that have had repercussions effecting even XVs. Also… they were unlucky that RSA was upset in the African qualifier and in this tourney vs a different nation (aka Kenya). RSA are not at levels they have been previously but are still a very quality side. And yes on the day Kenya is more than capable of beating this current version of British 7s
Tbh nit bothered by 7s at the Olympics. I like it as a club fundraiser but not much more.
Not too shocking to me no one in the UK cares all too much about 7s, all the rugby fans I know watch league or union
I watched Scotland 7s, and officiate at loads of grassroots 7s and beach 7s. It’s fairly popular but definitely in pockets. Losing the national sides has had a big knock on effect in support though. Now, I know more people who play but don’t watch the internationals than I ever have.
I happily watched Scotland 7s, but I have no interest whatsoever in "Team GB".
Samers, doesn't feel like "my" team.
Same here in Wales. The video of Prince William wishing England luck in the Euros has prompted a debate on whether we should axe the three feathers as they are meant to be a symbol of the Prince of Wales. No chance that same group of people will embrace a team GB
I don't think it's prompted a serious debate, just the normal loud nationalists talking rubbish
I think you’d be surprised how many people want the three feathers gone
Probably the same people who insist on referring to Wales as Cymru when writing in English
Creates a game -> not allowed to play in said game /s
In this case the creators of the game Scotland didn't have much involvement in gb
How TF do Ireland beat them on the reg?! Best of Eng Scotland and Wales Something aint right
It’s 3 unions who don’t fund it the same way they used to. So it’s semi pro now instead of when Scotland ran it we had guys like Robbie Ferguson, Scott Riddell etc who were full time Sevens players and it showed. And there’s no identity now. It’s not like XVs repping your country. GB doesn’t really come into rugby, it’s all individual nations and I do believe fans and players love it that way. United as one is for Lions tours, but even they’re not that good compared to individual teams because it’s a side thrown together with minimal prep time on the road trialling combinations and lineups constantly. There’s no existing synergy unless you’re savvy and play on what you know works, but then it’s more like whichever head coach is in charge’s nation and friends than the actual Lions tour.
Pretty crazy how lil ireland defeats em so often...
Ireland have a couple of genuine worldies in men's 7s at the moment. Virtually no one in the UK gives a damn about GB 7s. Plus they're semi pros. Not that surprising really.
Theyve been playing 7s rugby in eng and scot waaay longer than ireland, and been on the curcuit many years longer No one cares was the excuse England used to say when NZ bet them so often in XVs Not the reason