Brendan Gallagher charts the rise of the event from Murrayfield ‘93
BRENDAN GALLAGHER looks at how the World Cup Sevens has evolved since its 1993 inception
THE World Cup Sevens are hoving into view again and while the last two, in my opinion, rather got lost amid the huge concentration on first winning the Olympic bidding and then focussing on Rio 2016, this year’s competition in San Francisco promises to be a classic.
The World Cup has generally been a mixed bag since the inaugural event in 1993, with both the formats and the nature of competition changing.
The 1993 tournament at Murrayfield was proposed to the IRB by the Scottish Rugby Union and, rather against the odds for a start up competition, it was a great success and still one of the best World Cups.
It had a very different feel. There was much more rugby over the three days than now – to win you had to play ten games with two different pools before the knock out matches – so you could afford to lose a game here or there and still prosper.
Back then there was also no perceived division between Sevens and Fifteens so many of the world’s best players were on view. Australia – ultimately losing finalists – fielded Michael Lynagh, David Campese and Willie Ofahengaue from their World Cup-winning team of just two years previous, while South Africa arrived with the might of Andre Joubert, Chester Williams and a young Joost van der Westhuizen.
New Zealand fielded John Timu, Glenn Osborne and Samoa’s Frank Bunce while another couple of Samoans from RWC1991 – Pat Lam and Junior Paramore – were also on parade for New Zealand! Eligibility in those days was a moveable feast but at least the rest of Samoa’s 1991 World Cup squad were available for their own country.
Phillipe Bernat-Salles and Laurent Cabannes were there for France, a youthful Rob Howley provided the wheels for Wales and while only Tim Rodber and Andrew Harriman had been capped by England at this stage six other members of the ten-man squad were soon to win full honours.
There were some quaint touches, this was still the amateur era remember. Scotland were asked to nominate a number of players who could form a reserve pool for the ten-man squads as they hit injury problems later in the tournament which is how Michael Dods got to contribute to England’s eventual success. Dods also went on to win senior caps for Scotland.
England’s squad was an interesting mix of those who were brilliant schoolboy Sevens players such as Lawrence Dallaglio and standouts from the Middlesex 7s where Andrew Harriman ruled the roost for Quins, using his 20.9secs 200m pace to good effect.
Coach Les Cusworth, a superb Sevens player himself, also backed his judgement and had seen that the likes of Rodber, Dave Scully and Nick Beale had Sevens potential even though they had played little of the abbreviated game.
England began their preparations early in the week with a pub crawl around Edinburgh to celebrate Damian Hopley’s 23rd birthday with the result that they got run ragged the next morning in a practice match organised against Dundee HSFP. It could only get better... and it did. There was too much talent in that squad and of course they had Harriman. The Prince was an amazing talent when fully switched on. When push came to shove he could score against anybody from anywhere.
“It was a very tough tournament with ten matches over three days but we were a fit side and that played into our hands a bit,” recalls Dallaglio. “It was only a few years earlier that I had been a member of the Ampleforth side that won the Open and Festival back to back at the same Rosslyn Park Schools tournament, 14 matches in four days if I recall, so I knew these competitions were endurance tests as well.
“We won four of our five games in the first pool – losing only to a good Samoa side – and then we had a thing called the quarter-final pools with the top eight teams divided into two pools of four. We beat New Zealand and South Africa and lost 21-12 to Australia but qualified no bother for the semifinal against Fiji who we beat 21-14.
“The Prince got two tries and I grabbed one but a key moment was a fantastic try-saving tackle by Dave Scully from which we counter-attacked and scored. A huge 14-point swing but that’s the way it goes in Sevens.”
In that final England scored three tries in quick succession straight from the restarts – the conceding team had to restart in those days – to race into a 21-0 lead with Harriman’s smoking of Campese on the outside the pick before the Aussies stormed back with three tries of their own although Lynagh could convert only one. That, ultimately, was the difference as England held on for a famous win.
Murrayfield had set the bar high and Hong Kong four years later was every bit as good. By then Fiji were at their zenith and clear favourites although van de Westhuizen had persuaded a few mates like Andre Snyman and Stephen Brink and a young Bobby Skinstad that they should give it crack. And how.
Joost was the skipper, playmaking genius, defensive organiser and speed merchant, sharing the latter role with the splendid Brink. All that he required from his colleagues was that they run and tackle themselves stupid for 14 minutes in every game, 20 in the final.
South Africa met Fiji in the final and for the opening ten minutes Joost played like a man possessed, as Fiji threw everything at the Bok upstarts. One minute he would be making an 80 metre break, ten seconds later he was back making a try-saving tackle.
Somehow the Boks reached halftime 12-0 up but Serevi, Bari, Vunibaka, Koroi, Erenenavula and co then got busy. Vunibaka and Erenenavula swept in for glorious tries and the formidable Koroi added a brace but still the Boks weren’t finished. Brink went in for a third and finally Joost, still chasing the dream, mounted one final lung bursting attack before being dragged down inches short. Fiji by the skin of their teeth.
So two World Cups down and we had yet to see New Zealand in a final but that was all to change in Mar del Plata four years later when they arrived with a full strength squad including a certain Jonah Lomu, who, possibly for the final time in his illustrious career, was at absolute full gas. The result was the most comprehensive ever World Sevens triumph.
New Zealand swept through the pool stages before dismissing Samoa 45-7 in the quarter-finals and hosts Argentina – who included Gus Pichot and Felipe Contepomi – 31-7 in the semi-final before Lomu claimed a hat-trick in their crushing 31-12 win over Australia in the final. The Kiwis were a class apart and from 2001 they won seven of the next eight World Series titles.
But Fiji love upsetting the applecart and that’s exactly what they did in 2005
“England began their preparations early in the week with a pub crawl around Edinburgh”
back in their ‘home from home’ in Hong Kong. The standard was very high in 2005 and both sides were given a fright in the semi-finals. New Zealand beat Australia 24-20 and Fiji squeezed past England 24-19 but the combatants had enough in reserve to lay on a treat come the final with Fiji winning 29-19. Serevi, Bobo, Delasau, Ryder Vunibaka, Rawaqa, Ligairi and the Satala brothers – that was one of the great Fiji squads and it had to be to better the Kiwis.
The World Cup Sevens then entered a difficult period as the IRB turned all their efforts towards their Olympic bid. One of the initial criteria the International Olympic Committee insisted on – unreasonably – was that the Olympic Sevens competition should be the premier Sevens event in the world. Now that was difficult because the World Series was very well established by now and the World Cup was a keenly anticipated global event every four years.
And of course, the IOC’s demands were a nonsense . The Olympic basketball final does not top the NBA or Word Championships, the Olympic tennis final is nothing compared with Wimbledon, the Olympic football event is a very watered down version of the FIFA World Cup. And so on.
But to win the vote rugby had to go along with this fiction for a while and at one stage it was even mooted that the World Cup might be scrapped, although happily that didn’t prove the case. It would be fair to say though that the 2009 and 2013 events didn’t enjoy the profile of the previous World Cups. Nothing could be allowed to upstage the forthcoming Olympic event.
There was, however, a massive breakthrough during this period that was linked to the Olympics. To be an Olympic event rugby had to run men’s and women’s competitions in parallel and 2009 in Dubai saw the first women’s World Cup tournament.
The men’s event produced a shock winner in a well-drilled Wales squad who had speedster Tal Selley to run in the tries and a very promising Rhys Webb buzzing around to good effect. On a demanding final day the Welsh beat New Zealand in the quarter-finals and Samoa in the semis before accounting for Argentina in the
final. In the women’s tournament Australia came through a nerve wracking final day with 17-10 wins over England and South Africa in the quarter and semi-finals and then a 15-10 victory over favourites New Zealand in the final. Four years later New Zealand’s men stormed to a 33-0 win over England in the final during a thunder storm in Moscow having also disposed of Fiji with aplomb 17-0 in the semi-final, while in the women’s tournament New Zealand were also best in class defeating Canada 29-12 in the final.