Who will the Wallabies send to the Olympics?

Good one. Sounds good enough for me. We could well have four Oceania teams then. Thanks Andy

I've not really seen any discussion about qualification, but it is an interesting question. If it followed the model for some of the other sports, there would probably be qualifying tournaments for each of the five major zones along the lines of: - Host nation - Winner American qualification - Winner African qualification - Winner Asian qualification - Winner + runner-up European qualification - Winner + runner-up Oceania qualification Then 4 wildcards, maybe based on Sevens series rankings or specific tournaments. It might be a bit difficult to have regional national cometitions for Sevens though, unless they were getting enough national teams in each zone to have a realistic tournament. If not, the easiest (and more importantly, cheapest) might be to just use the Sevens series. If so, I'd like to see: - Host - Top 2 ranked Americas - Top 2 ranked European - Top 2 ranked Oceania - Top 2 ranked Africa - Top Asian - Wildcards for the two highest ranked non-qualified teams That would at least allow the possibility of up to four teams from one zone, if the teams rank well enough.

Oh well, they might not; they might do so on population. in which case, i dont know on what basis they will allocate the number of teams each region gets. it would be a pity though if it is based on population and number of countries, in which case oceania probably should get one slot -- to be contested for by NZ, Australia, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Cook Islands, PNG etc. I'm sure commonsense will have to prevail and they will allocate to take into account past performance. Otherwise, on current rankings, a field of 12 based on population and regional size might look like this: Europe (3): Great Britain, France, Russia/Portugal/Spain/Italy Africa (2): South Africa, Kenya/Algeria/Zimbabwe/Namibia/Morocco Asia (2): Japan, China/Korea/Hong Kong South America (2): Brazil, Argentina/Uruguay North America (2): USA, Canada/Mexico Oceania (1): NZ/Samoa/Fiji/Australia/Tonga/Cook Islands etc I hope not.

No Olympic funding until ARU changes its charter especially the Board structure. Ask John O'neil a question in a week when 7's is coming to Adelaide Australia - why no announcement or any strategy re 7's rugby!! I know that are talking about it internally at ARU but lets face facts they are the wrong people who have been suckling from the breast for farr too long. Agree or disagree? New blood required I say! Who is Peter Friend by the way?

what sort of money will the ARU receive as government Olympic funding? I have a mate involved in the water-polo world, and the code doesn't receive the funding, it goes to the individual athletes. Does the game receive AIS coaching, funding and talent ID around the country?

Would depend where it was, I guess. I don't imagine the schedule is set for Brazil yet, but I was thinking of Hockey as the example - the trials for the London Olympics are this October ahead of the games the following July. I suppose they could do the selection and then send all the players back to their various 15s team, crossing their fingers that they all come through the next season unscathed. However, I was thinking the more likely approach would be to hold the trials, select the team, compete in the qualification tournament/s and then have the team train and play together for the next 7s season to prepare them for the Olympics, requiring about a years worth of commitment....

But no Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Britain at the games. I am comparing like for like - Soccer as an Olympic sport vs Rugby as an Olympic sport. I thought your point was that the Olympics should change their selection policy to favour areas with more top teams. They don't do it for Soccer; why would they change their selection policy for Rugby?

According to Stu, there are only 12 teams in the comp (if trrue, I dont see the point. There should be at least 16 teams). If it's 12, and since the Olympics tends to organise team events on population lines, then Oceania would get 1 or 2 slots -- which is ridiculous. If based on population, Asia would get 3, Europe 3, Africa 3, Americas 2 and Oceania 1. They prob should have pre-olympic tournamants and then playoffs between zones.

Hmm.. I do have a belief that Portugal and Russia will make the Q-finals of the RWC.... Not this year.. Or this decade.. I believe in perhaps 2 decades they would be able to make it to the Q-finals...Only a matter of time.

"Sevens is rubbish, the T20 of the rugby world. A mistake to add it to the olympics, IMHO" Thank goodness no one on the IOC agrees with you.

Good point and that's another debate. How are they going to do it?

except that, on current form, O'Connor could be an anything specialist

Sevens definitely isn't rubbish, you mustn't have seen a good game yet. Unfortunately most of the pool games in IRB events are rubbish because they are huge mis-matches. Hong Kong is particularly bad cause its 24 teams. NZ putting 60 points on Korea is rubbish, just as it would be in 15's or any sport where you have a collosal mismatch, except perhaps football due to its scoring system. There were a bunch of great games over the weekend in HK, among the pool matches NZ versus Portugal (not when they played again in the quarters) was great, as was USA versus England, I thought the most physical match of the weekend along with Samoa v Tonga. As long as teams are evenly matched most games of sevens are good. I reckon the IRB should split the circuit into two divisions of 12 each, with promotion relegation between the two. It would require significant funding initially but its such a great 'product' it would pay for itself within a few years through increased tv rights and sponsorship.

A year off? I dont think so. They could all play Super 15 that year and then have trials for anyone to try out, and the best 12 could be picked. Train hard for a couple of months, play in a few warmup tournaments, and voila thats the team. They would have to forgo Tri Nations that year, probably. if you're a Wallaby and you miss out on the Olympics you'd have that to fall back on that year!

Argentina not a powerhouse? Cameroon? Nigeria? All competitive at World Cups. Besides, compare like with like. Olympic soccer is not the pinnacle of the sport: it is an Under-23 tournament. Rugby 7s at the Olympics will be its pinnacle. Hence the comparison with soccer World Cup.

But it isn't the world cup. Look at who has contested Soccer at the last few Olympics - it doesn't exactly reflect the powerhouses of the sport.

As I understand it, the defined selection process will run: 1. The IOC and relevant International Federation (in this case the IRB) define the process by which teams will qualify for the games 2. They also define the Qualification System establishing the criteria by which athletes are eligible to compete in a particular sport at a particular Games (likely to be little more than requiring athletes to be registered with the national body) 3. For Australia, the AOC will then define their Selection Criteria for the sport and advise the National Federation (in this case the ARU). 4. The ARU will then establish its Nomination Criteria, to be applied in selecting the specific group of athletes to participate in the Games from the pool of athletes that conform to both the Qualification System and Selection Criteria. 5. The ARU will then nominate its selected team and a shadow team according to the nomination criteria. 6. The AOC will then check up on all the players and decide who will actually be going to the Olympics. I guess the question will be whether the AOC would accept an ARU nomination criteria that went "we'll pick the guys, don't worry, they're awesome at the other form of the game". The Commonwealth Games didn't exactly show that philosophy to best advantage, so I doubt it would fly here. If it could, does anyone think the Olympic swimming team wouldn't be picked well ahead of time? They have to go through selection trials, so if the ARU goes down the path of selecting a team specially for the Olympics I am sure there will need to be a trials process demonstrating that they've identified the best available players. My guess is that they will instead take the cheap option and follow the hockey model, simply sending the national team to the Olympics. So the question will then become whether they are prepared to pay players Wallaby money to take a year or so off to dedicate to the goal of Olympic Sevens.

But that is where the strength is. To use the soccer World Cup example again, proportionally Europe and South American get more than they should in terms of their numbers alone, but it is deserved based on proven performance. The same should be the case for Oceania rugby

Their are only 12 teams slated to play in the mens division, 4 teams from Oceania is too many in my opinion. Great Britian will be playing as one team as well.

You really think a team like that above, with a few weeks of intense anaerobic training and drills, could not beat the 7 that could not beat Samoa and struggled to beat Russia? Shows how well you know 7s.