As the Sevens turns 40, the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union (HKRFU) have announced details of the format and participating teams at the 2015 Hong Kong Sevens. 2015 which takes place from March 27-29 at the Hong Kong Stadium.
The defending champions New Zealand will be joined by the other 14 core teams on the Sevens World Series: Argentina, Australia, Canada, England, Fiji, France, Japan, Kenya, Portugal, Samoa, Scotland, South Africa, United States of America and Wales.
The sixteenth team invited by World Rugby to round out the SWS core competition is Belgium who will be making their first appearance in Hong Kong. They become the 57th nation to have participated at the Sevens since the tournament’s inception in 1976.
As last year, a 12-team qualifying competition will accompany the core team action at the Hong Kong Stadium. The 12 teams, comprising two teams from each of World Rugby’s six regions, will be battling for the sole spot available for promotion to the Sevens World Series in the 2015/2016 season. The winner of the qualifier will replace the bottom placed team on the HSBC Sevens World Series after the completion of the final event on this year’s Series at Twickenham in May.
The twelve confirmed teams for the qualifier tournament are Russia and Spain from Europe, Papua New Guinea and Tonga from Oceania, Zimbabwe and Tunisia from Africa, Mexico and Guyana from the Americas and Uruguay and Brazil from South America.
Hong Kong as champions of the Asian Rugby Football Union’s regional sevens series in 2014, will be joined by South Korea as Asia’s representatives in the qualifier competition. 2013 Asian sevens champions Japan were victorious in last year’s international qualifier and are participating in the core Sevens World Series this season.
The official tournament draw for all 28 participating teams will be held in Hong Kong on February 16, 2015.
This year, Friday will see two rounds of the qualification pool matches played alongside the opening pool matches of the SWS core competition (one match per core team). Gates will be opened one hour earlier at 11am with the first kick-off at 1pm and matches finishing at 9pm.
Saturday sees the world’s best rugby sevens action taking place from 7am (first kick off at 9am) until 7:30pm while Sunday’s match action will kick off at 9:30am (gates open 7am).
Additional reporting HKRFU