Commonwealth sevens

[Mr Mwenda]

Pretty catastrophic group stage from both the men and women. Saw the men v Samoa and they spent the whole game in their own 22. Pretty disappointing considering they must have been prepping hard for this.

[Banquo]

Pretty catastrophic group stage from both the men and women. Saw the men v Samoa and they spent the whole game in their own 22. Pretty disappointing considering they must have been prepping hard for this.

yep, see also commonwealth games thread, but we were battered by samoa

[Spiffy]

Not on a wind up here, but does anyone else find rugby sevens stultifyingly boring and just about unwatchable? OK at training to sharpen up passing, sprinting and wind, but that's about it.

[Mr Mwenda]

It's not like real rugby in terms of interest to me, but has become its own game to be appreciated on its own. I like it as a bit of variety at these big events.

So it's better than many other sports.

[Donny osmond]

Not on a wind up here, but does anyone else find rugby sevens stultifyingly boring and just about unwatchable? OK at training to sharpen up passing, sprinting and wind, but that's about it.

Yes I'm afraid I agree

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[Raggs]

I quite enjoy watching it, but I don't go out of my way to do so.

Edit, it's definitely a very different sport though

[Banquo]

Not on a wind up here, but does anyone else find rugby sevens stultifyingly boring and just about unwatchable? OK at training to sharpen up passing, sprinting and wind, but that's about it.

Better to play than watch for sure. Used to enjoy the Middlesex sevens day out back in the day too, but professional sevens is a lot less interesting.

[Tobylerone]

Better to play than watch for sure.

My memories (from a previous lifetime) of playing in a couple of tournaments are rather unpleasant.
Oxygen deprivation, mostly, even worse if the other six were misguided enough to win a couple of games.
Then face a team whose three outside backs were all sprinters......

[Cameo]

I enjoy it but can see it's get a bit repetitive if you want h week in week out.

In a dream world, though, we'd have a proper global season and then at the end of it they'd be a short but prestigious series (say, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melrose), or even a one off tournament, in which countries picked their best squads from that season's crop of internationals and went at it.

It'll never happen and probs for good reason, but I'd imagine they'd be huge interest. When I went to sevens tournaments as a kid, we used to spend half our time picking dream teams.

Professionalism has definitely improved the standard of the games and the fitness is ridiculous, but to me sevens is about top players a. getting to show their talents in a bit more space b. blowing out their arses and c. getting shown up by a surprisingly quick forward or a cocky youngster.

[Which Tyler]

It's a different sport (as different as the 200m sprint and the 1500m middle distance), and I love it for what it is.

I wouldn't want to watch it every week - but then, it's 80-odd matches over three days, but I miss being able to watch the world series of 8-12 weekends over the year.

I also think it's a brilliant addition to the commonwealth and Olympics schedules - probably the single best exemplar of "faster, higher, stronger" of any single event sport, with the added advantage of bringing interest to smaller countries like NZ, Fiji, Samoa etc.

Further, it's a very good introduction to the sport - with my wife as an example who got into the Rio 7s, Gold coast 7s, Tokyo 7s and into the women's 6N last and this year, and is much more interested in, and open to rugby, club or international 7s or XVs, women's or mens. I know several friends and colleagues from non-rugby countries who've done similar - except commonwealth (mostly USA, Greece and Scandinavia)

[Croft_No.5]

A few years ago they took a tournament to Munich with a lot of the main teams playing. Was working there at the time and it was a huge success. Loads of my football mad friends went for the weekend and got hooked. Four of them came over to Edinburgh for a 6N games the following year and they now play regularly for a local club. Like you say a great intro to the game

[Spiffy]

I enjoy it but can see it's get a bit repetitive if you want h week in week out.

In a dream world, though, we'd have a proper global season and then at the end of it they'd be a short but prestigious series (say, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Melrose), or even a one off tournament, in which countries picked their best squads from that season's crop of internationals and went at it.

It'll never happen and probs for good reason, but I'd imagine they'd be huge interest. When I went to sevens tournaments as a kid, we used to spend half our time picking dream teams.

Professionalism has definitely improved the standard of the games and the fitness is ridiculous, but to me sevens is about top players a. getting to show their talents in a bit more space b. blowing out their arses and c. getting shown up by a surprisingly quick forward or a cocky youngster.

The days of picking a sevens team from a full international XV are long gone. Sevens has become a specialized game for players who don't scrum, ruck, maul etc.. Real fliers like May, Rees-Zamitt, Radwan, Arundell, would probably do well enough, but the sevens circut is full of sprinters like that, and they would look nothing special. Vice-versa, top sevens players rarely go on to play full XV international rugby, though there some exceptions.

[Which Tyler]

I'd say that the real fliers in XVs would look pretty pedestrian in 7s - not their first run, maybe not their second, but by their 3rd 50m sprint at full pace, in 3 minutes...

On top of that, they wouldn't have the tactical awareness, or the physique / technique for 1 man rucks, or the awareness of how important keeping the ball alive is.
Almost like it's specialised.

Of course, they'd be able to learn; but they'd need to sacrifice a couple of years of their XVs career to do so.

[Cameo]

I'd say that the real fliers in XVs would look pretty pedestrian in 7s - not their first run, maybe not their second, but by their 3rd 50m sprint at full pace, in 3 minutes...

On top of that, they wouldn't have the tactical awareness, or the physique / technique for 1 man rucks, or the awareness of how important keeping the ball alive is.
Almost like it's specialised.

Of course, they'd be able to learn; but they'd need to sacrifice a couple of years of their XVs career to do so.

I wouldn't go that far (although it maybe depends on whether you have played growing up). Scotland have never been great on the circuit, but when we have had success it has often been with some predominantly 15's players as the star. Mark Bennett made the GB Olympics team without much build up. Darcy Graham and George Horne are ace sevens players. Even some more pedestrian ones like Dougie Fife and Glen Bryce focused on 15s most of their career but stood out (for Scotland) at sevens. Not saying anyone could just slot in and standout, but there is still a lot of overlap in skills.

Anyway, my point wasn't that they would be better than the sevens specialists. More that it would be fun. I like the new professionalised sevens but it'd be great if each of the club tournaments had an old school sevens tournament at the end of the year that they all went for from their main squads. Likewise at the end of the (mythically unified) international season.