Schedule Unveiled For 2018/19 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series
World Rugby has announced all the rounds of the 2018/19 Men’s and Women’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, with the Ireland Women’s team set for a new season’s opener in Glendale, Colorado in October.
Rugby Sevens continues to engage global audiences and break new ground. The Men’s and Women’s 2017/18 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series events saw record breaking fan engagement figures with over 120 million video views, a 60% increase on 2017.
The 2018/19 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series will be hotly contested as 15 core Men’s teams and 11 core Women’s teams compete for the World Series title, and with next season’s series acting as the principal route for qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, it promises to be once again highly competitive.
This season, the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series increases to six rounds with USA Rugby hosting the new opening round in Glendale, Colorado on October 20-21, 2018.
Round two and three are combined events alongside the Men’s series, taking place in Dubai (November 29-30) and Sydney (February 1-2) with round four taking place in Kitakyushu (April 20-21) and round five scheduled for Langford, Canada (May 11-12). The final round of the Women’s Series will culminate in Paris (May 31-June 1).
The HSBC World Rugby Men’s Sevens Series will be contested across ten rounds from December 2018 to June 2019. The series opener will kick off in Dubai (November 30-December 1), before teams move to round two in Cape Town, South Africa the following week.
In the New Year, the Men’s teams will travel to Hamilton, New Zealand (January 26-27) before both the Men’s and Women’s sides are welcomed to Sydney, Australia for three days of action-packed Sevens on February 1-3.
The fifth and sixth rounds for the Men’s series will be hosted in Las Vegas, USA on March 1-3 and Vancouver, Canada on March 9-10, before the teams travel to Hong Kong (April 5-7) and Singapore (April 13-14) for rounds seven and eight respectively.
The penultimate round of the series will take place again in London (May 25-26), with round ten hosted in Paris from June 1-2.
World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont said: “As we enter an Olympic Games qualifying year, the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series promises to again be highly competitive as both the Men’s and Women’s teams look to secure their place, via the World Series, at Tokyo 2020.
“Rugby Sevens has seen record growth in awareness in recent years with its inclusion in the Olympics having a profound effect on the sport, attracting an estimated 30 million fans globally. The series continues to capture the imagination of global audiences with record breaking fan engagement figures of over 120 million video views recorded this year.
“The World Series is truly one of Rugby Sevens’ flagship competitions and we are looking forward to watching teams, once again compete at the highest level for, not only for the coveted world series title, but also Olympic qualification.”
Leanne Cutts, HSBC Group General Manager and Group Head of Marketing, commented: “As a long-term partner of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, we can take great pride in the work we’ve done with World Rugby to help deliver the record growth and expansion the game has enjoyed in recent seasons.
“The Men’s and Women’s games on the pitch are more spectacular than ever. With electrifying athletes, jaw-dropping skills and fascinating personalities, we firmly believe Rugby Sevens is as entertaining as any sport out there. With the sport’s second Olympics now on the horizon in 2020, there are significant opportunities to engage even more new players, fans and countries.”
The 2018/19 World Series also welcomes China and Japan, who join the Women’s and Men’s competitions respectively as core teams having secured qualification in Hong Kong earlier in the year. The Ireland Men’s team missed out on qualification in Hong Kong and will be hoping to successfully navigate that same route next April.
The Ireland Women secured their best ever tournament finish as a core team when coming sixth in Langford in May. This past season, the girls in green won Challenge Trophies in Dubai and Paris, defeated both Canada and Russia for the first time, registered wins over the higher-ranked Fiji (three times), USA and Spain (twice), and had their closest losing margins against Australia (31-19) and New Zealand (17-0).
The Ireland Men’s and Women’s Sevens teams will both compete at the Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco over the weekend of July 20-22 at AT&T Park. RWC Sevens tickets are available here.
The Ireland Sevens jerseys are available to buy online here from Elverys Intersport, official sports retailer of the IRFU.
HSBC WORLD RUGBY MEN’S SEVENS SERIES SCHEDULE:
Dubai, UAE, November 30-December 1, 2018 **
Cape Town, South Africa, December 8-9, 2018
Hamilton, New Zealand, January 26-27, 2019
Sydney, Australia, February 2-3, 2019 **
Las Vegas, USA, March 1-3, 2019
Vancouver, Canada, March 9-10, 2019
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, April 5-7, 2019
Singapore, Singapore, April 13-14, 2019
London, England, May 25-26, 2019
Paris, France, June 1-2, 2019 **
HSBC WORLD RUGBY WOMEN’S SEVENS SERIES SCHEDULE:
Colorado, USA, October 20-21, 2018
Dubai, UAE, November 29-30, 2018 **
Sydney, Australia, February 1-3, 2019 **
Kitakyushu, Japan, April 20-21, 2019
Langford, Canada, May 11-12, 2019
Paris, France, May 31-June 2, 2019 **
* All fixtures correct at time of publication/subject to change
** Combined events