Commonwealth bosses got it wrong with Sevens competition

THE recent Commonwealth Games Sevens produced one game for the ages – New Zealand's epic win over Australia to take the women’s title.

New Zealand also stole away with the men’s title but the tournament generally failed to ignite in the manner the organisers had hoped.

Much of that is down to the mystifying decision to do away with quarter-finals in the men’s competition and leap straight from the pool stages to the semifinals.

As any experienced Sevens fans will tell you the fight for the top two places in each pool – and the four quarterfinals themselves – provides the guts of any competition. Without that you only have half a tournament.

Alas, on the final day, quality teams such as Canada, Kenya, Wales and the hosts Australia – who on their day could produce a shock result against anybody – were confined to the less than enthralling 5th-8th place play-off games.

The organisers also slipped up badly at the pool stage by scheduling the crucial pool B decider between Australia and England so early in the evening, with the result that most of the crowd made their excuses and left after the Aussies lost.

So, memo to Birmingham 2022:

Having assembled a men’s field off 16 nations at least ensure that eight teams progress to the knockout stages and always schedule English teams to finish the evening sessions.