Shujaa to open Sevens Rugby World Cup campaign with Tonga duel

The men’s national rugby 7s team, Shujaa, are set to start their Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022 campaign against Tonga at the Cape Town Stadium on Friday 9 September.

Shujaa, who qualified to the event courtesy of their disappointing third place finish in the Rugby Africa 7s competition held in Uganda back in April this year, found out their opposition after World rugby released the match schedule with 50 days to go to the tournament set to be held in South Africa.

Shujaa, who are two-time semifinalists in the World Cup Sevens, having reached the last four in 2009 in Dubai under the tutelage of the late Benjamin Ayimba and again in 2013 (Moscow) with Mike Friday at the helm, will be hoping they can replicate those performances in the tough format of the event which will be their sixth consecutive time after RWC 7s debut in 2001 in Mar del Plata followed by subsequent editions in 2005 (Hong Kong), 2009 (Dubai), 2013 (Moscow) and 2018 (San Francisco).

The 24-team men’s competition begins on day one with a qualification round involving teams seeded from nine to 24 where Shujaa lie. The seedings for both men’s and women’s competitions were based on points accrued during the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in 2020 and 2022, while teams who do not participate on the Series were seeded using their rankings gained at the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series 2020 in conjunction with regional ranking positions ending in July 2022.

The winners of the qualification round will progress to the round of 16 where they will take on the top eight seeded teams, while the losers will go into the Bowl competition which will decide positions 17 to 24.

The winner between Shujaa and Tonga will face Argentina in the Round of 16.

The innovative ‘winner takes all’ knock-out competition format first introduced at Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 means every match counts as teams will need to win every time they enter the pitch in order to become world champions.

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Pre-Round of 16 Fixtures

Match 1 - IRELAND 7S vs PORTUGAL 7S

Match 2 - CANADA 7S vs ZIMBABWE 7S

Match 3 - SAMOA 7S vs UGANDA 7S

Match 4 - SCOTLAND 7S vs JAMAICA 7S

Match 5 - KENYA 7S vs TONGA 7S

Match 6 - WALES 7S vs KOREA 7S

Match 7 - HONG KONG 7S vs URUGUAY 7S

Match 8 - GERMANY 7S vs CHILE 7S