Most recent season or competition: 2024 Australia Sevens | |
Sport | Rugby sevens |
---|---|
Inaugural season | 1986 |
Country | Australia |
Venue(s) | Perth Rectangular Stadium |
Most recent champion(s) | Argentina (2024) |
Most titles | Fiji (6 titles) |
The Australia Sevens is an international rugby sevens tournament that was first played in 1986. Currently hosted as the Sydney Sevens, the event is part of the World Rugby Sevens Series. [1] The tournament was held in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and on the Gold Coast in previous seasons.
The NSW Rugby Union hosted an international sevens tournament at Concord Oval in Sydney from 1986 to 1988, as part of Australia's Bicentennial celebrations. The Australian Rugby Football Union, later the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) and now known as Rugby Australia, continued the event for a further year in 1989. [2]
The 2000 Brisbane Sevens was the first Australian Sevens tournament in the World Sevens Series run by the International Rugby Board (IRB), now known as World Rugby. It was the 7th tournament of the series in the inaugural 1999-2000 season and was hosted at Lang Park. Fiji played Australia in the final, and won the match in the dying seconds, thanks to a brilliant try to Waisale Serevi. [3] Brisbane's hosting rights for 2001 were withdrawn by the IRB because of the Australian Federal Government's sporting boycott of Fiji, [4] imposed after the 2000 Fijian coup d'état. [5] After sanctions were lifted later in 2001, [6] the remaining two tournaments of Brisbane's four-year hosting agreement were played and won by Australia and England in 2002 and 2003 respectively. [7] [8] Australia was not awarded a World Sevens tournament for the next three years.
Adelaide secured the hosting rights for the 2006/07 season. The 2007 Adelaide Sevens took place in April of that year, replacing the Singapore Sevens in the calendar. [9] The tournament was hosted at Adelaide Oval for five seasons, with the last edition of the Adelaide Sevens being held in 2011.
In April 2011, the ARU announced that the Australian leg of the Sevens World Series would be played at Skilled Park on the Gold Coast for at least the next four years. [10] The tournament was scheduled for the early part of the 2011/12 season, which meant that two World Sevens events were played in Australia in 2011. The Gold Coast tournament was initially named the "International Rugby Sevens Gold Coast", [10] but was later rebranded as the Gold Coast Sevens. [11]
The Gold Coast attendances for the 2013 and 2014 events were lower than expected, [12] [13] and in March 2015 the ARU announced that Sydney would host the event for the next four years from the 2015–16 season. [13] [14]
With the closure and rebuilding of Sydney Football Stadium, both men's and women's events for the Sydney Sevens tournament were moved to Sydney Showground Stadium in 2019, [15] and Western Sydney Stadium for 2020. [16]
Year | Venue | Final | Placings | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sydney | Winner | Score | Runner-up | Plate | Bowl | Shield | Ref | |
1986 | Concord Oval | New Zealand | 32–0 | Australia | Argentina | Wales | — | [17] [18] |
1987 | Concord Oval | Australia | 22–10 | New Zealand | South Korea | Fiji | Western Samoa | [19] |
1988 | Concord Oval | New Zealand | 22–12 | Scotland | Fiji | Australia | Spain | [20] |
1989 | Concord Oval | New Zealand | 26–16 | Western Samoa | Australia | Fiji | — | [21] [22] |
Summary of results in the Australian leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series:
Team | Winner | Runner-up | Third | Fourth |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fiji | 6 ('00, '07, '11, [lower-alpha 1] '12, '14, '20) | 1 ('03) | 1 ('23) | 2 ('19, '24) |
New Zealand | 5 ('11, '13, '16, '19, '23) | 4 ('02, '08, '11, [lower-alpha 1] '12) | 1 ('17) | – |
South Africa | 3 ('08, '09, '17) | 4 ('11, '18, '20, '23) | – | – |
Australia | 2 ('02, '18) | 4 ('00, '13, '16, '24) | – | 1 ('17) |
Samoa | 1 ('10) | 2 ('07, '14) | – | – |
England | 1 ('03) | 1 ('17) | 1 ('19) | 1 ('20) |
Argentina | 1 ('24) | – | 1 ('18) | – |
United States | – | 2 ('10, '19) | 1 ('20) | 1 ('18) |
Kenya | – | 1 ('09) | – | – |
Ireland | – | – | 1 ('24) | – |
France | – | – | – | 1 ('23) |
Updated to the 2024 tournament
Notes:
Waisale Tikoisolomoni Serevi is a Fijian former rugby union football player and coach, and is a member of the World Rugby Hall of Fame. Serevi is renowned for his achievements in rugby sevens, while also enjoying a long career in fifteen-a-side rugby at both club and national team levels. Nicknamed "The Wizard" by commentators, he is widely considered to be the greatest rugby sevens player in the history of the game. A biography of Serevi titled Waisale Serevi: King of Sevens by Nick Darvenzi was published in 2018.
Rugby World Cup Sevens (RWCS) is the quadrennial world championship of rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union. Organised by World Rugby, it currently consists of men's and women's tournaments, and is the highest level of competition in the sport outside of the Summer Olympics.
Robina Stadium, also known by its sponsored name Cbus Super Stadium, is a rectangular football stadium in the Gold Coast suburb of Robina, Queensland. The main usage is as the home ground to the National Rugby League's Gold Coast Titans; this venue sometimes hosts the A-League team Brisbane Roar FC.
The Australia national rugby sevens team participates in international competitions such as the World Rugby Sevens Series and Rugby World Cup Sevens. The current captain of the team is Nick Malouf, and the head coach is John Manenti.
Rugby union in Australia has a history of organised competition dating back to the late 1860s. Although traditionally most popular in Australia's rugby football strongholds of New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, it is played throughout the nation.
The World Rugby Pacific Challenge, formerly the IRB Pacific Rugby Cup, is an annual rugby union football tournament held in Oceania since 2006. It is contested by national 'A' teams from the Asia-Pacific region. The tournament is run by World Rugby through Oceania Rugby.
The Singapore Sevens is an annual rugby sevens tournament contested by national teams. It was first hosted as part of the IRB World Sevens Series in 2002. The Standard Chartered Bank was the original title sponsor. It was effectively replaced in the calendar by the Australian Sevens for the 2006-07 season.
The Samoa national rugby sevens team, referred to as Samoa Sevens or Manu Samoa 7s, competes in the annual World Rugby Sevens Series. Representing the polynesian country of Samoa, with a population of about 202,000, the team competes against some of the wealthiest countries in the world. The Samoa sevens team is overseen by the Samoa Rugby Football Union, which oversees all of rugby union in Samoa.
The Niue national rugby sevens team is a minor national sevens side. They have participated in two Commonwealth Games — in 2002 and 2006. They also compete in the Oceania Rugby Sevens Championship and the Pacific Games.
The 2011–12 IRB Sevens World Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC Sevens World Series, was the 13th annual series of the IRB Sevens World Series tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000.
The Papua New Guinea women's national rugby sevens team represents Papua New Guinea in international women's rugby sevens tournaments. They are regular participants at the Oceania Women's Sevens Championship and Pacific Games.
Tevita Kuridrani is a Fijian-born Australian rugby union player. His usual position is outside-centre. He is currently with French club Biarritz and previously played for the Brumbies and Western Force in Super Rugby. Kuridrani has sixty caps for Australia in international rugby.
Dominic Shipperley is a retired professional rugby union footballer who played for the Australian national team in both test rugby and rugby sevens. In Super Rugby, he played four seasons with the Queensland Reds from 2011 to 2014, and a further two seasons for the Melbourne Rebels. His regular playing position was wing.
The SVNS, is a series of international rugby sevens tournaments for women's national teams run by World Rugby. The inaugural series was held in 2012–13 as the successor to the IRB Women's Sevens Challenge Cup held the previous season. The competition has been sponsored by banking group HSBC since 2015.
Kirisi Kuridrani, formerly Kirisi Nasiganiyavi, is an Australian rugby union player of Fijian descent. He is currently signed to Japanese club Honda Heat and previously played for the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby. His usual position is wing.
The 2000 Brisbane Sevens, officially called the 2000 Brisbane International Sevens, was an international rugby sevens tournament that was part of the World Sevens Series in the inaugural 1999–2000 season. It was the Australian Sevens leg of the series, held on 18–19 February 2000, at Lang Park in Brisbane.
The 2001 Brisbane Sevens, officially the 2001 Brisbane International Sevens, was a cancelled international rugby sevens tournament, originally scheduled to be part of the second season of the World Sevens Series in 2000-01. The International Rugby Board (IRB) withdrew the World Series hosting rights in response to the Australian government's sporting sanctions against Fiji.
The Darwin Hottest Sevens, known as the Hottest 7s in the World or the Hottest 7s, is a rugby sevens tournament held annually in Darwin, Australia on a weekend in early October. The event is sponsored by Heineken and is hosted by the Northern Territory Rugby Union. The tournament draws club teams and national teams from many countries around the world, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, England, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Australia.
The National Rugby Sevens Championship is an annual rugby sevens competition hosted by the Australian Rugby Union. Tournaments are held for senior men's and women's teams, as well as for junior men's and women's teams with an under-18 age requirement. It is contested by teams from Australian states and territories, and National Indigenous representative sides, as well as teams from the Australian Armed Services, and Australian Universities.
The World Rugby Sevens Series hosts have included several different counties. Eight counties currently host a leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series. Several other countries previously hosted tournaments, most recently England, France and New Zealand, all three of which were terminated following the 2022–23 season.