Gold, gold, gold! It’s Olympic gold for world rugby

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 12 Oct 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Australia's James O'Connor, left is tackled

Australia's James O'Connor, left is tackled at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

In the end, Sevens Rugby became an Olympic sport with the ease of a great ocean liner easing down the slipway on its launching.

All the lobbying, the setting up of special tournaments, the creation of a Women’s Sevens Rugby World Cup and the co-opting of former rugby great players to push the case ended triumphantly with a resounding 81 – 8 votes by the IOC for Sevens Rugby at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero.

Golf was also accepted for the Olympics but with a lesser supportive vote of 63 to 27.

Here is the first of my fearless predictions about Sevens Rugby and the Olympics. The Sevens Rugby tournament will be one of the most popular events at Rio, and succeeding Olympics.

It is a pity that Sydney in 2003 resisted the temptation to have a Sevens Rugby tournament as one of the experimental sports at our Olympics.

At the Commonwealth Games where Sevens Rugby has been played, the tournament has been a spectacular success.

The Wellington leg of the IRB Sevens tournament in February next year was sold out within minutes. The Australian leg of the IRB Sevens tournament which is held in Adelaide should benefit substantially in interest and ticket sales from the IOC’s decision.

There are already some kill-joys who are insisting that the IOC’s decision will substantially help Sevens Rugby but will do nothing for the longer form of the game, the real game.

The obvious reply to this nonsense is that the growth of Sevens Rugby will greatly expand the reach of the game for Sevens and for the 15-person game.

In the United States, for instance, rugby is going to receive a big swag of money from their Olympic funding to develop a Sevens side that can be a contender for an Olympic medal. The 15-person side can only benefit from this, the way Fiji has from its obsession with Sevens Rugby.

China, Japan, East Europe, South America (where Chile has had a successful leg of the IRB’s Sevens tournament for some years), the Pacific Islands nations and Africa will all now have access to money to develop the rugby game, at the Sevens level primarily and in some of the countries like Brazil, at the 15-person game, too.

Sevens Rugby is rugby’s equivalent of cricket’s T20 game.

Both games represent a different genre of the main game of their game. They both, however, create an interest and a skill base for the longer version of the game.

While saying this, many nations that become good at Sevens Rugby will not become good at the longer form of the game.

Fifteen person rugby is a highly complex, multi-skilled game that requires all sorts of body shapes and personalities to meld into a team. There has been very little change since the first decade of the 19th century in the small group of nations that have claims to be dominant rugby powers.

In over 100 years the Home Unions, France, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand have remained the major rugby powers.

In the last 30 years or so we’ve seen the rise of second tier nations like Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Canada, the USA (the winner of two Olympic gold medals for rugby), and Argentina, with only the Pumas going on to become a first tier rugby power.

But Sevens Rugby allows nations outside of the first tier and those who will never be able to field a competitive 15-person side to be very competitive in what is now, or will be, an Olympic sport.

I saw this first hand a few years ago at the fabulous Wellington IRB Sevens tournament. My wife and I were looking down at a Kenyan side (which was playing in its first ever IRB Sevens tournament) doing its warm-ups before playing Australia.

‘That team,’ Judy said, pointing out the Kenyans, ‘are going to win their match.’

‘They’ve got as much chance of beating Australia, as I have of flying out of the stadium,’ I told her. ‘And, anyway,’ I continued, ‘what makes you so sure they’re going to win.’

‘They’ve got such nice, tight, athletic butts,’ she replied. ‘Any side that looks like that has to be a winner.’

It’s history now, of course, that Kenya did beat Australia. The Kenyans have built up a competitive Sevens side and its success, and the Sevens success of Fiji and even Wales (the surprise winners of the 2009 IRB Sevens World Cup), provided some of the momentum for the push for Olympic status.

The fact is that there are probably a dozen or perhaps even more international Sevens sides that could win the first Olympic gold medal. The various national Olympic committees that voted for Sevens Rugby as a new Olympic sport were also voting for their nation having a chance (in the case of a number of smaller nations) to win an Olympic medal.

This chance applies obviously to Australia, although the Rudd administration seems to be besotted with courting the ethnic vote by pouring over $40 million in football’s quest to hold the World Football Cup tournament, and another $15 million into women’s football on the grounds that it needed the money to become a major power in women’s football.

When this decision was being made, John O’Neill had to inform the Federal Sports Minister, Kate Ellis, that Australia already had a world champion team, the Australian Women’s Sevens Rugby side, the winner of the first IRB Women’s Sevens tournament.

Hopefully, Ellis will now see the light and direct some of the government money being poured into women’s football into the Australian Women’s Seven side.

Finally, a couple of suggestions for the ARU to consider.

* There should be an effort to create an annual Schools Sevens Tournament, with a view to selecting several Australian schools to play in an annual Sevens Schools tournament involving New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and (hopefully) South Africa school sides.

* And the creation of an annual Southern Cross Sevens tournament involving Australia, the Pacific Islands, South Africa and some South American teams.

This Southern Cross Sevens tournament could become a sort of Sevens equivalent of the Super Rugby tournament and a valuable television asset for the rugby code in the SANZAR region.

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