IRB SEVENS WORLD SERIES

Wales v Spain, Edinburgh 2009

The 2009/10 Series will be played out in eight cities around the world, beginning with Dubai in December and culminating with Edinburgh in May.

Hot on the heels of the first ever international sevens tournament, held at Murrayfield in 1973 to celebrate the centenary of the Scottish Rugby Union, the next country to build on its popularity was Hong Kong. Ten Asian rugby-playing nations plus teams from Australia and New Zealand competed in the inaugural Hong Kong Sevens, in 1976.

Cantabrians of New Zealand won the tournament, which soon evolved to include representative sides of the major international nations and subsequently the Barbarian Football Club – the only non-international side to win the tournament.

Over the next two decades international sevens tournaments began to be played in other corners of the globe. The IRB launched its inaugural World Sevens Series in 2000 – the 25th year of sevens rugby in Hong Kong – as an elite-level competition series where the emergent rugby nations could compete with more established giants.

The 2008/09 tournament - punctuated the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Dubai - culminated in a thrilling Murrayfield finale between South Africa and Fiji. The South Sea islanders won the tournament but SouthArfica were crowned World Series champions. This year’s round-the-world adventure promises to be no less exciting.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Sombreros and saltires in Edinburgh 2009

Sixteen teams are entered (24 in Hong Kong) into each tournament. They’re divided into pools of four teams, who play a round-robin competition within each pool. Points are then awarded in each pool – three for a win, two for a draw and one for a loss. From the top, the trophies awarded in each tournament are the Cup (the winner is the overall tournament champion), the Plate, Bowl and Shield (except in Hong Kong, where the Shield is not awarded).

In each tournament (except Hong Kong) the top two teams in each pool advance to the Cup competition. The four quarterfinal losers compete for the Plate, the Bowl is contested by the third-place finishers in each pool, while the Shield is contested by the last-place teams from each pool. In Hong Kong, the six pool winners, plus the two highest finishing second-place teams, advance to the Cup. The Plate participants are the remaining eight highest-ranked teams, while the lowest eight compete for the Bowl.