Tickets for the Hong Kong Sevens go on sale today from 10am. The tournament, 5-7 April 2024, will be the 30th and last at the Hong Kong Stadium before the event moves to the new Kai Tak Sports Park in 2025.
Hong Kong Sevens
Date: 5-7 April, 2024
Venue: HK Stadium
Tickets: $1,950
More info: www.HKsevens.com
The 2022 Sevens Challenger Series kicks off in Santiago, Chile on the 12-14 August, with qualification to the World Sevens Series awaiting the winner. As Hong Kong’s coach Paul John puts it “Everybody wants to be on the World Series and test themselves against the best in the world.”
Speaking about the squad he’s picked John continued “There’s a lot of experience in the boys who got picked. They’re the ones who have been consistently putting their hands up during training and the competitions we’ve had recently.”
The Challenger Series is three-day tournament, with 12 men’s and 12 women’s teams competing to achieve core status on the Series. Hong Kong are in Pool B with Tonga, Jamaica and Zimbabwe.
Captain Max Woodward says the squad want to shed their ‘nearly men’ tag and is blunt about his desire: “As long as I’ve been playing 7s for Hong Kong I’ve wanted to get on the [World Sevens] Series. It would mean a massive amount to me, and I know the rest of the squad feel the same way. We’ve been so close before and the yearning is there.”
“We’re very excited to play a winner takes all tournament – knowing that we are one of the favourites and the chance to win is very much within our capability is a real boost.,” added Woodward.
Watch the 2022 Sevens Challenger Series live on the World Rugby website.
Hong Kong Men’s Sevens Squad
Max Woodward (Captain), Callum McCullough, Michael Coverdale, Kane Boucaut, Alessandro Nardoni, Pierce Mackinlay-West, Sebastian Brien, Lee Ka To Cado, Hugo Stiles, Russell Webb, Alex McQueen, Harry Sayers, Max Denmark, Yiu Kam Shing.
Additional reporting and images: World Rugby, HKRU
World Rugby announced today a condensed World Rugby Sevens Series 2021 schedule which features five women’s and four men’s rounds, with the addition of a further two potential men’s events under discussion.
The 2021 Series kicks off with back-to-back women’s events in Marcoussis, Paris on 15-16 and 22-23 May. The Series will then take a break for the countdown to the Olympic Games and recommence with a men’s event in Singapore on 29-30 October, followed by joint men’s and women’s rounds in Hong Kong on 5-7 November, Dubai on 3-4 December, followed by an exciting climax in Cape Town on 10-12 December.
New Zealand are the reigning champions of both the women’s and men’s Series after being crowned winners of the 2020 edition, which was brought to an early conclusion with five of the eight women’s rounds and six of the 10 men’s rounds successfully completed prior to the onset of the pandemic.
In the men’s Series, Japan will join as a core team following their promotion from the inaugural World Rugby Challenger Series in 2020, while it has been agreed that in this Olympic year, the England, Scotland and Wales teams will combine to compete as ‘GB Sevens’ in both the men’s and women’s Series’ in 2021. This will create two additional invitational places for teams to participate in the men’s 2021 Series events, with invitational teams to be announced in due course.
The Olympic Sevens competition will take place on 26-31 July, 2021 at Tokyo Stadium. To ensure teams are as best prepared as possible for the Tokyo Games a series of high-performance preparation events will take place.
Monaco will host the World Rugby Sevens Repechage, the final qualification event for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, on 19-20 June, 2021. With 21 of the 24 teams already qualified for the Olympic rugby sevens competition, the remaining two women’s and one men’s spots will be determined in Monaco.
World Rugby Interim Chief Executive Alan Gilpin said: “Today’s announcement of the World Rugby Sevens Series 2021 schedule marks a significant and exciting moment for rugby seven’s re-emergence from the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and we thank all Series partners for their unwavering support, and host organisations and participating unions for their hard work, patience and spirit of collaboration.”
“As a key driver of game growth, particularly in emerging markets, the continued success of rugby sevens and the Sevens Series is a strategic priority for World Rugby and our US$4 million funding to support sevens programmes is a clear demonstration of our commitment. This unique Olympic year provides a huge opportunity to reach new audiences around the world and introduce them to the speed, skill and excitement of rugby sevens, encouraging them to become future fans of the Series.
Additional reporting and images: World Rugby
Japan defeated Uruguay 5-0 in an unforgettable final at Montevideo’s Estadio Charrúa, bringing to an end the second tournament on the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series in South America. Hong Kong beat Chile 12-7 to clinch third place.
After 22 minutes of rugby where both sides cancelled each other out, Japan captain Chihito Matsui finally managed to break the deadlock when he scored in the second half of sudden-death extra-time.
By reaching the final, though, Uruguay secured a place in the top eight in the overall standings and will now compete in the final play-off tournament for a spot in the World Rugby Sevens Series, replacing the bottom-placed core team in the World Series in the following season.
Montevideo champions Japan finished top of the standings on 39 points from a possible 44, after following their bronze medal finish from the first tournament with gold in the second of the South American legs, while Hong Kong’s consistency in reaching the podium on both occasions – second place in Chile was followed third place in Montevideo – was rewarded with the runners-up spot.
Viña del Mar champions Germany beat Italy in the fifth-place play-off and ended up in third spot overall, followed by Chile, Uruguay, Tonga, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
World Rugby has yet to confirm the third and final round of the men’s World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series, which was due to be held in Hong Kong in April.
The final was a high tempo, end-to-end affair but with both defences standing firm in the face of relentless pressure.
Japan had the better of the clear-cut opportunities and could have opened the scoring in the first half of normal time had it not been for Benjamín Amaya’s timely ankle-tap and a handling error from Kasushi Hano when he was five metres from the try-line.
Then, another piece of brilliant defensive work by Diego García stopped Kazushi Hano when it seemed the speedster was in the clear with fifty metres to run.
Uruguay’s best chance to break the deadlock came with 90 seconds of normal time left to play when Kameli Raravou Soejima was sin-binned but they were unable to hammer home their numerical advantage and the scoreline remained at 0-0.
Another scoreless first half of sudden-death extra-time followed before Japan somehow stepped up a gear to finally find a way through, two quickly-taken tap penalties causing disarray in the Uruguayan defence and resulting in the match-winning try for captain Matsui to score the winning try.
Both semi-finals were South American-Asian encounters with Japan prevailing against Chile and Uruguay were too good for Hong Kong.
Chile, who had lost inspirational captain Felipe Brangier to a knee injury, scored first but then fell away to conceded five tries to rampant Japan who ran out comfortable 31-10 winners.
In the second semi-final, Uruguay’s smart kicking game, deployed by captain Felipe Etcheverry, twice led to tries against shell-shocked Hong Kong, the beaten finalists in the opening tournament.
First Baltazar Amaya crossed on the left-hand side and then Mateo Viñals went over on the opposite flank as Los Teros Sevens won 12-0.
Chile were a surprise winner in the opening quarter-final, beating Germany in an intense game that seemed to be heading for sudden death when, seconds from the end, Tim Lichtenberg’s unconverted try drew the scores level at 5-5. However, the Viña del Mar champions kicked the restart out on the full. Patience was the key for Chile as they attacked, non-stop, for nearly two minutes until the crack in the German defence appeared and Agustín Planella gave his team the win.
Japan had no trouble in beating Jamaica 32-0 despite an unaccustomed edgy first half and a spirited performance from the Caribbean side. They were more composed in the second half, though, and scored four tries.
A brilliant pass under huge pressure from experienced campaigner, Guillermo Lijtenstein, created the opening try for Uruguay in their quarter-final against Tonga and they went on to add three more tries to win 27-7 and confirm their place in the semi-finals.
To join them in the top four, Hong Kong had to play the waiting game. Trailing Italy by two points with 33 seconds left to play, they recovered possession from a penalty and Max Denmark drew two defenders to put replacement Jamie Hood in for the winning try. An Italian win would have put them among the top eight in the final rankings.
Max Woodward (Captain); Ben Rimene; Raef Morrison; Michael Coverdale; Hugo Stiles; Cado Lee Ka-to; Jamie Hood; Jack Neville; Alex Mcqueen; Liam Herbert; Russell Webb; Max Denmark; Sebastian Brien; Yiu Kam-shing; Kane Boucaut; Toby Fenn.
Additional reporting and images: HKrugby, World Rugby
Hong Kong advanced to the final of the opening tournament in the two-stop World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series in Chile, before losing 10-0 to Germany. The results keep Hong Kong on track in their bid to qualify for a full-time spot on the World Rugby Sevens Series.
Germany beat Japan 12-5 in their semi final, while Hong Kong overcame a tough ask from hosts Chile, working their way back from their first deficit of the tournament, 14 points down midway through the first half to win 17-14.
Salom Yiu put Hong Kong on the board shortly before the break with Raef Morrison and Kane Boucaut scoring in the second half to push Hong Kong past the hometown favourites. Earlier in the day, Hong Kong edged by Uganda 10-7 thanks to Jack Neville tries on either side of the interval.
A battered and bruised Hong Kong disappointed in the final, losing 10-0 to the Germans, and adding another chapter to the burgeoning rivalry between the two developing rugby nations at both sevens and fifteens.
It was a bittersweet performance for coach Paul John who was proud of his team’s efforts this week: “Overall, we are pleased with our progress. We finished second and reached the final, which is one of our goals at every tournament, but we suffered a second loss in a final, which is frustrating.
“It was not a great final. I thought it was very flat and we didn’t play our best. We started very poorly and fell off some tackles which helped them at key moments.”
Germany scored their first try shortly before the end of an open first half with both sides having several scoring chances. Penalties and aggressive German defence derailed Hong Kong’s early opportunities keeping them scoreless into the second stanza. Germany pushed their lead to 10-0 after nine minutes and Hong Kong were unable to close the gap down the stretch.
“It is funny, we would have taken that result beforehand if you offered it, but the boys are disappointed with the finish. Still, we are right in the mix now to finish near the top of the two tournaments. Coming in we needed a top eight finish, but our goal was to finish in the top two in both tournaments and we have now done that in the first,” John added.
The squad will travel today to Montevideo, Uruguay where they will take part in the finale next weekend with the same 16 teams.
Rest and recovery are at the top of John’s mind.
“There are some battered and bruised bodies out there after playing six games in two days. Normally, we play five matches in the Asian series, so this is something that we have not done in a while, but no one else has either really. Japan is used to it, but I think we are the only two sides with that experience of back-to-back tourneys with such a huge prize at the end
“The biggest thing is to keep the squad as fresh as we can,” said John, who has the luxury of travelling with 16 players to assess before naming the squad at the end of the week.
“We will look at certain parts of our game of course but it s all about recovery now and having the freshest possible squad come Saturday morning in Montevideo,” John concluded.
Max Woodward (Captain); Ben Rimene; Raef Morrison; Michael Coverdale; Hugo Stiles; Cado Lee Ka-to; Jamie Hood; Jack Neville; Alex Mcqueen; Liam Herbert; Russell Webb; Max Denmark; Sebastian Brien; Yiu Kam-shing; Kane Boucaut; Toby Fenn
Additional reporting and images: HKrugby, World Rugby
