HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series returns to New Zealand after three-year hiatus

The world’s best men’s and women’s rugby 7s players will return to action in New Zealand for the first time in 1,091 days following a three-year absence as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2023 continues in Hamilton on 21-22 January.

The Black Ferns Sevens and All Blacks Sevens will be looking to defend the HSBC New Zealand Sevens titles won on home soil dating back to the last event held in 2020, while Samoa and Australia enter the event as men’s and women’s Series leaders respectively.

The 2023 Series is shaping up to be the most competitive in history with the prize of Olympic Games Paris 2024 qualification on offer for the top four women’s and men’s teams in the 2023 Series standings, while hosts France have pre-qualified for next summer’s pinnacle event in the nation’s capital.

The Men’s Series has seen eight different teams reach the Cup semi-final stage, with all eight teams medaling across the first three tournaments.

There have been three different gold medal winners (Australia, Samoa and South Africa), three different silver medalists (Fiji, Ireland and New Zealand), and three different bronze medal winners (France, New Zealand and USA).

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Only New Zealand have medaled twice, while Samoa, South Africa and USA have made the semi-finals twice.

The stakes couldn’t be higher at the bottom end of the men’s Series this season as well. Following the penultimate event in Toulouse, the 15th ranked team will be relegated to the 2024 Sevens Challenger Series while the 12th through 14th ranked teams will face off against the Sevens Challenger Series 2023 winner for the 12th and final position on the 2024 Series.

The 16 men’s and 12 women’s team captains lined-up in Hamilton on Wednesday in front of the newly opened K’aute Pasigika Pan Pacific Community Centre before engaging with fans for autographs and selfies.

The men’s pool draw for Hamilton sees Cape Town champions Samoa take their place in Pool A alongside Olympic champions Fiji, France and Kenya.

Hosts New Zealand slot into Pool B alongside Great Britain, Hong Kong winners Australia and invitational team Tonga.

New Zealand men’s captain Sam Dickson said: “We're super excited to be playing at home again. It's been a few years since we've been here. We have many good memories here and we’re looking forward to the weekend.

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“It’s an Olympic qualifying year and our goal is to win the World Series and qualify for the Olympics. We obviously had a slow start, but we bounced back really well in Dubai and Cape Town and we now sit third in the table.

So we'll be looking at keeping that momentum and flying here in Hamilton and putting on a good show for our fans.”

Cape Town bronze medal winners USA lead Pool C and will face off against Uruguay, Ireland and Japan on day one.

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South Africa, Cup winners in Dubai in December, are joined by Argentina, Spain and Canada in Pool D.

Having been on New Zealand’s sporting calendar for more than two decades, this year the tournament will see the addition of a second playing field next to FMG Stadium Waikato to enable the full men’s and women’s draws to be played over two action-packed days of thrilling world class rugby sevens.

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