Rugby Must Seize Seven’s Worldwide Opportunity - John Kirwan

Rugby Must Seize Seven’s Worldwide Opportunity says All Blacks Legend

23 March 2012, Auckland – Legendary All Black winger John Kirwan says rugby needs to grasp the opportunity that the inclusion of the seven-a-side form of the game in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games is offering the sport to go global.

Speaking at a HSBC media debate on the eve (eds 22 March 2012) of the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens – the sixth event in the nine-tournament 2012 HSBC Sevens World Series – Kirwan, who coached Japan at last year’s 15-a-side IRB Rugby World Cup, said the sport needs to stop worrying about the negative impact the growth of Sevens might have on the longer form game.

“Sevens is fundamental. We do not have a global game… yet. Sevens is the vehicle to having a global game. Sevens could be the Twenty20 (of rugby) in 15 years time. The challenge for the IRB is that, when it hits globally after the 2016 Olympics, is strategically to say it’s a positive risk, because it’s not a negative risk,” said Kirwan, a member of New Zealand’s 1987 World Cup winning team, drawing parallels with the problems the cricket world has had in keeping up with the popularity of its short-form game.

“If we’re still sitting here in 20 years time and Japan hasn’t beaten New Zealand to win the (IRB Rugby) World Cup, then Fifteens will die. There are some pretty big decisions to be made in Fifteens so the two [forms of the game] do go along together. I think we’re scared of Sevens. Four-day cricket might have itself to blame if Twenty20 is more important in 20 years time,” Kirwan added.

With an estimated US$200 million a year of support from individual government and National Olympic Committee grants about to become available worldwide to the sport this year, when the end of the London 2012 Olympics heralds the start of the four-year funding cycle for Rio de Janeiro, Kirwan’s comments were given credence by China’s Sevens coach ‘Johnny’ Zhang Zhiqiang.

Zhang, who is the record points and try scorer at the Hong Kong Sevens, revealed that his country started focussing almost exclusively on Sevens rugby long before the International Olympic Committee voted in 2009 to reintroduce the sport to the Olympic Movement.

“Since 2006 there have been no teams playing 15-a-side because the Chinese government realized there would be a change with rugby coming into the Olympics. Before, we were playing Fifteens and Sevens,” he said.

“Sports development in China is very heavily dependent on the government and Rugby Sevens is an Olympic sport That’s why Sevens is the focal point of the development, but they’re not going to give up on Fifteens because this is where rugby originates. Their policy is to bring people from Sevens to Fifteens.”

The story is similar with some of the other traditional Olympic superpowers, none of which have a rich rugby history. Russia is reporting exponential growth, while Kirwan revealed that the USA, whose national coaching job had interested him before he was appointed by Japan in 2007, is about to emerge in spectacular fashion.

“America has been the so-called sleeping giant and the question has always been ‘when will we be able to unlock this?’ Well it’s just been unlocked! America will be a Sevens country within the next four years,” the Kiwi claimed, explaining that there is a ready-made supply of rugby players from the top high school athletes who don’t make it in American Football.

“There are three thousand elite level athletes that don’t get scholarships at American colleges and there has been no other sport in America that they can play. So, there are three thousand athletes each year in America waiting to play Sevens. Now that that [Olympic] funding is hitting, you will see an incredible American Sevens team within four years.”

The IRB is hoping, in the future, to add a South American event to the HSBC Sevens World Series, which already includes stops in Tokyo and Las Vegas as well as in the traditional rugby playing nations. With the Rio Games potentially opening up access to Brazil, which this year became the world’s sixth largest economy, Kirwan argues that the chance to grow in new markets shouldn’t be lost just for the sake of protecting the 15-a-side game.

“Do we want to be sitting here in 25 years where Sevens is more important than the 6 Nations and the Tri Nations? No. Twenty years ago Sevens was a hybrid game and no-one understood it. Now it is part of the game. If we understand the risks we should be able to get it together. It will bring new challenges, but they’re all positive!” he declared.

The 2012 Cathay Pacific / HSBC Hong Kong Sevens kicks off tonight at 9pm. www.irbsevens.com

ENDS

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