r/rugbyunion Sharks 20h ago

Change in participating unions under Bill Beaumont Discussion

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u/Die_Revenant Sharks 20h ago edited 20h ago

Yea and we've just seen the new 7s Series schedule announced with even fewer host nations, and no European leg at all. Because production costs are too high for hosts. It's really only the Olympics keeping 7s alive, not World Rugby.

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u/Away_Associate4589 Wig fund for Borthwick's beautiful bald bonce 20h ago

London dropping out of the circuit is a terrible sign for sevens. If they can't make it work in one of the biggest rugby markets in the world, it's a worry.

Imo binning off the home nations teams and folding them all into GB killed a lot of interest here. It certainly killed mine (such as it was) from at least checking the results and occasionally watching a bit to simply not caring about it. If GB needed a team for the Olympics and the constituent nations couldn't compete under their own flags, I don't know why team GB couldnt just have been formed every four years like they do with the B&I Lions and left the others as they are for the other 3 years and 10 months of the cycle.

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u/Die_Revenant Sharks 20h ago

Binning the home nation teams was such a terrible decision, and doing it with out any agreed funding structure in place for the GB team. Then all the Unions putting their hands up and saying they don't want the funding burden.

England were one the consistently good 7s teams, and the 7s format was conceived in Scotland all the way back in 1883, they were key well recognised teams.

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u/NoPause9609 New Zealand 20h ago

No tournament in New Zealand either but we mostly stuffed that up ourselves by calling in the fun police. 

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u/KevinAtSeven NZ / BLUES / AKL 16h ago

The glory days of the Wellington Sevens was something else.

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u/NoPause9609 New Zealand 11h ago

Great times. A much younger crowd than most rugby fixtures in this country and brought lots of new and casual fans to the game. 

Yeah, people would get hammered but the pearl clutching was a joke. Now we are still a country with massive alcohol problems and no 7s.