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The Roar

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Sevens and tens are the perfect way to kick off the Australian rugby year

29th January, 2018
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Evania Pelite will be a massive loss. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
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29th January, 2018
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A long and, until recently, prosperous summer of cricket was hurriedly pushed to the side last weekend, as rugby announced itself with a bloody magnificent bang for the new year.

The Sydney sevens promised a weekend of world-class action, and it was certainly hard to ignore the colours as hordes of people poured out of Central Station to walk up through Surry Hills to the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday.

Ballerinas. Lawn bowlers. Blokes in full bodysuits (sans underwear, which I sadly cannot unsee). Fifteen – at least – guys and girls with a curious multicultural mix of Hawaiian shirts and Mexican sombreros.

It was amazing.

But the view at my hotel the next morning was something I could only smile about. Littered among the national strips of four nations other than Australia were people in Wallabies jerseys and shirts, plenty of Sydney 7s event t-shirts, and Australian Sevens gear.

And families! There were kids everywhere, to the point that I had to line up for the Coco Pops dispenser. It was simultaneously annoying and bloody excellent.

There were groups of mates, and a large group of Polynesian women laughing about guys and girls getting smashed into touch, but it was the family groups that really stood out. The TV pictures throughout the weekend highlighted just how many kids were there having a great time.

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The weekend was capped off by Australia picking up the double – and in superb style. The women beat New Zealand in the final 31-0, and the men did the same job on South Africa, stunning the series leaders 29-0 to claim their first cup in six seasons, and their first Australian title since 2002.

Both were dominant in their finals, but the women achieved their own part of history, becoming the first Sevens World Series side – women or men – to go through a whole tournament without conceding a point. 213 points for. Not one point against.

And how good was it to see the women’s side – some of them still in their playing kit – cheering on the men in their final, nearly five hours later?

It was fitting that Emma Tonegato scored the try to seal the final, after she lit the tournament up with a try that immediately brought back memories of David Campese at the height of his pomp and brilliance.

Running through to regather Alicia Quirk’s kick from inside the Australian 22 on Saturday morning, Tonegato was met by covering Spanish defender Patricia Garcia, who was way too deep in the last line. Tonegato stepped and swerved one way and then the other, all at top pace and without losing stride, before finally confusing Garcia once too often and racing away to score.

It was an instant highlight and should feature prominently in all Rugby Australia marketing this year.

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Come the final against New Zealand, the pressure of the Australian defence was incredible, with at least two tries coming straight from forced turnovers.

Five Aussie women scored tries in the final, a wonderful sign of a side firing on all cylinders. Charlotte Caslick was the player of the final, but it could easily have been Quirk, Emily Cherry, Sharni Williams, Emma Sykes, or Tonegato herself. My Twitter followers might have noticed I became a bit of an Emma Tonegato fan over the weekend.

The men were every bit as good, and that’s not necessarily something we’ve been able to say a lot in recent times. The turning point of the final was Lachie Anderson’s outstanding, last-ditch covering tackle on Blitzbokke flyer Rosko Speckman, with the TMO ruling Spackman had a boot stud in touch half a nanosecond before grounding the ball over the line.

It was 0-0 at the time, after an intense first five minutes, but South Africa never fired a shot after that moment.

The Australians scored two converted tries in 90 seconds to take the halftime lead, scored again straight after the break, before Ben O’Donnell’s double sealed a second Australian win to cap off a magnificent weekend.

The challenge for Rugby Australia now – and especially the Super Rugby sides – is to cash in on what people have seen over the weekend, and start telling them where and when they can start seeing more of that kind of entertainment.

After everything Super Rugby went through in 2017, the goal now is to give people a reason to come and watch again.

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That resumes in a fortnight, with the second edition of the Brisbane Tens needing to light up the Super Rugby teams in much the same way the Sydney 7s did.

This is the teams’ first chance to play for something meaningful in 2018 and prove to fans that all the emails and social media updates haven’t been for nothing. It’s an opportunity to prove that watching the competition this year will be worthwhile and not a chore.

But as the Sevens showed, it should be easy for the Tens to do that. It’s similarly fast-paced, but with genuine set-piece contests that can provide structure to the cut-down version of the game.

The Sydney 7s has done its bit to kick the season off, now it’s up to the Brisbane Tens to join the dots with the sides we know and will watch every weekend for the next six months.

So captivate us; launch the season in style. Let’s see the next step in proving that we learnt something from killing off the 2017 season before it got going.

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