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
The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the com ...
. The tournament was held in Brisbane, in Adelaide, and on the Gold Coast in previous seasons.
History
The
NSW Rugby Union hosted an international sevens tournament at
Concord Oval
Concord Oval (also Waratah Stadium), is a rugby football stadium in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Concord, Australia. The stadium is able to hold 5,000 people as of November 2022, down from 20,000 when the Concord Oval was opened in 1985. , it ...
in Sydney from 1986 to 1988, as part of
Australia's Bicentennial
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788.
History
The bicentennial year marked Captain Arthur Phillip's arrival with the 11 ships ...
celebrations. The Australian Rugby Football Union, later the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) and now known as
Rugby Australia
Rugby Australia Ltd, previously named the Australian Rugby Union Limited and Australian Rugby Football Union Limited, is an Australian company operating the premier rugby union competition in Australia and teams. It has its origins in 1949. It ...
, continued the event for a further year in 1989.
[Sydney 1986–]
Rugby 7.
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
World Rugby is the world governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international rug ...
. 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
Waisale Tikoisolomoni Serevi (born 20 May 1968) 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 car ...
.
[ Brisbane's hosting rights for 2001 were withdrawn by the IRB because of the Australian Federal Government's sporting boycott of Fiji,][ imposed after the 2000 Fijian coup d'état.][ After sanctions were lifted later in 2001,][ the remaining two tournaments of Brisbane's four-year hosting agreement were played and won by Australia and ]England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in 2002 and 2003 respectively.[ 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
The 2007 Adelaide Sevens, promoted as the International Rugby Sevens Adelaide 2007, was a rugby sevens tournament that was part of the IRB Sevens World Series in the 2006–07 season. It was the Australian Sevens leg of the series, held over t ...
took place in April of that year, replacing the Singapore Sevens
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 replace ...
in the calendar.[ The tournament was hosted at ]Adelaide Oval
Adelaide Oval is a sports ground in Adelaide, South Australia, located in the parklands between the city centre and North Adelaide. The venue is predominantly used for cricket and Australian rules football, but has also played host to rugby le ...
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
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
on the Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
for at least the next four years.[ 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",][ but was later rebranded as the Gold Coast Sevens.][
The Gold Coast attendances for the 2013 and 2014 events were lower than expected,][ and in March 2015 the ARU announced that Sydney would host the event for the next four years from the 2015–16 season.][
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
Sydney Showground Stadium (Known commercially as GIANTS Stadium during the AFL Season) is a sports and events stadium located at the Sydney Showground in Sydney Olympic Park. It hosted the baseball events for the 2000 Summer Olympics. The Show ...
in 2019, and Western Sydney Stadium
Western Sydney Stadium, commercially known as CommBank Stadium, is a multi-purpose rectangular stadium in Parramatta, within the Greater Western Sydney region, approximately west of Sydney CBD. It replaced the demolished Parramatta Stadium ...
for 2020.
Results
Invitational tournament
World Rugby Sevens Series
Team records
Summary of results in the Australian leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series:
Updated to the 2020 tournament
Notes:
See also
* Australian Women's Sevens
The Australian Women's Sevens, currently hosted in Sydney, is an annual rugby sevens tournament and one of the stops on the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series. Australia joined the women's circuit in 2017 for the fifth edition of the series.
...
* Rugby union in Australia
Rugby union is a football code within Australia with a history of organised competition dating back to 1864. Although traditionally most popular in Australia's rugby football strongholds of New South Wales, Queensland and the ACT, it is played ...
References
External links
Official website
Adelaide IRB Sevens profile on UR7s.com
*
{{Rugby union in Australia
Rugby sevens competitions in Australia
World Rugby Sevens Series tournaments
Recurring sporting events established in 1986
1986 establishments in Australia