England’s best chance was a few minutes after we had taken the lead. Spreading the ball left, Daley had May outside him, but chose to cut back first. When the ball finally made it to May, the opportunity had been closed down.

What on earth gave you the idea anyone on the Guardian thinks England are the best in the world?

The game is outside the international window.

The RFU has an agreement with English clubs to pay them for access to players outside the windows (for matches and training). In turn, the Premiership clubs have a binding agreement not to release players outside the windows (otherwise, the RFU would wonder why they are paying for access which others can get for free). Northampton and Bath both received fines when they broke that agreement and released North and Faletau to Wales.

Other unions could negotiate a similar deal with the Premiership as the RFU has, but it’s probably not worth it. It’s usually only one or two players, whereas it’s the entire broader squad for the RFU.

Samoan player Gordon Langkilde is apparently still in police custody following his post-match assault of Welsh players on Saturday.

UK Daily Telegraph says he attacked two players, and injured a third:

“The 22-year-old is accused of assaulting two Welsh players after the clash between the sides at AT&T Park on Saturday afternoon erupted into violence at the final whistle. Wales won the game 24-19 thanks to a golden point try scored by Tom Williams, but as the two teams departed the field and went into the tunnel, things are alleged to have turned sour.

“San Francisco Police confirmed Langkilde is accused of assaulting two Wales players, a 26-year-old who suffered facial injuries and a 21-year-old who has broken facial bones.

“A third victim, a 24-year-old from Wales, also suffered facial injuries during the incident. It is understood the Wales players are Williams, Luke Morgan, and Ben Roach. Williams was left covered in blood by the incident and is believed to have had his nose and cheek bone broken.”

The Welsh players want to prosecute. They don’t believe there was anything in the match to warrant any hostility, let alone the violence which erupted. With the Mafi arrest and the other Rebel’s assaults in the news too, World Rugby will also need to act.

This is the Men’s Dream Team for the tournament

Phil Burgess (ENG)
Harry Glover (ENG)
Tom Mitchell (ENG)
Dylan Collier (NZ)
Joe Ravouvou (NZ)
Tavite Veredamu (FRA)
Josefa Lilidamu (JPN)

There are no South Africans or Fijians in the side, although the last three players on the list were all born in Fiji. Last week, you’d have got long odds on no-one from the top two sides in Sevens making the list.

Harry Glover was also named Breakthrough Player of the tournament. He’s the youngest member of the England squad, and his ability to regain restarts was a real asset.

Jordan Conroy of Ireland grabbed a lot or headlines, and outshone more high profile speed merchants like Baker, Isles and Norton. He would have been a contender for Breakthrough Player but his defence probably needs more work.

Happy to see Tom Mitchell named in the Dream Team. Ben Ryan always says he would walk into any Sevens side in the world, and he showed in San Francisco that he’s one of the best tacticians in the code. The way he marshalled his team was reminiscent of Waisale Serevi at his best.

Fiji and South Africa looked so good in their first two matches, it seemed they’d have too much for everyone. New Zealand took a little while to get into their stride but, when they did, looked formidable. Joe Ravouvou had a great tournament.

There was an ugly incident at the Cup on Saturday.

Wales beat Samoa in extra time and, in the tunnel after the match, Gordon Langkilde of Samoa assaulted Tom Williams. The Welshman was unable to play the next day. Langkilde was immediately suspended by World Rugby, and it appears police might also be investigating the incident. Williams may not have been the only Welsh player assaulted.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/international/rugby-world-cup-sevens-2018-wales-player-tom-williams-injured-assault-samoa-gordon-langkilde-a8459306.html

New Zealand are champions, with a comfortable 33-12 win over England in the final. England looked nervous early on, which handed the initiative to the All Black Sevens, and they could never get it back. New Zealand stole a number of England lineouts, which denied them key possession. It was a similar pattern to the way New Zealand beat Fiji, and, for that matter, the way England themselves beat South Africa.

Elsewhere, USA looked too over-eager against Argentina, and were punished. Both sides reminded me a little of the way they played in Rio. Argentina are shaping up as a deadly efficient sevens side, while USA will have to rethink why they seem to lose their shape on big stages. A key moment came when they had possession at 12-0 down but with Perry Baker still winding down his yellow card. Nothing was on, but instead of going into touch, and getting Baker back on, a US player elected to throw a wild offload, which Argentina collected and went 19-0 ahead at half time. Once Argentina got the first second-half score, there was no way back for USA.

South Africa claimed a rare win over Fiji to take the bronze medal. Ben Ryan once said that a relaxed, smiling Fiji sevens team is unbeatable. They looked tense in San Francisco, and their two losses were littered with handling errors. before the tournament started, England probably would have preferred to face New Zealand, rather than Fiji in the final. On today’s showing, Fiji might have been an easier proposition.

After missing out on Cup action by losing to France, the best hope for Australia was to win the Challenge Trophy (basically, the play-off for 9th and 10th place). There were good wins over Russia and Canada, but they have just lost out to Ireland.

In the end, Australia lost to two traditional fifteens powers – France and Ireland – with ambitions to move up in the Sevens world. Ireland will be particularly happy, since they toppled Kenya, Wales & Australia, who all have a regular place on the HSBC Sevens circuit. That will be the next target for the Irish.

France ran New Zealand close. That looks like a decent achievement now the Kiwis have made the final. However, their familiar inconsistency returned against Argentina, and they just threw away a chance to beat Scotland, in one of the most exciting matches of the day.

France had pegged back Scotland’s early lead, and gone 19-24 ahead, Then, with a minute and a half left in the game, one of their players was yellow-carded for kicking the ball away after a penalty, which is one of the dullest acts on a Sevens pitch. Scotland called a scrum, and used the overlap to level the scores. The match went into extra time, with France still a man down, and Scotland scored a length-of-the pitch try to win. Scotland finished in 7th place, and France in 8th.

Big turn-up as England beat South Africa 7-29 in the semi-final. The Blitzbokke are current Sevens series champions, and had been looking ruthlessly efficient. England managed to keep the ball away from them, and took just about every chance that fell their way.

Meanwhile, New Zealand beat Fiji 17-22 in the other semi-final, which disappointed the crowd, and neutrals everywhere. Fiji kept losing the ball forward, which gifted too much possession to the Kiwis.

The final will be a repeat of the last World Cup, which New Zealand won handily. If they can beat England again this year, then New Zealand will have both the Mens and Womens World Cup titles, to go with the double they won this year at the Commonwealth Games.

England just broke the hearts of the home crowd by beating USA with an extra-time golden point winner. South Africa and Fiji were easy winners, while New Zealand are the other semi-finalist, after France ran them close.

Australia’s women lost to France, just as the men did yesterday. USA women went down 26-21 to New Zealand, so they will have to take on Australia for third place, while France and New Zealand contest the women’s final.

In other Saturday games, Chile beat Tonga, which isn’t a result you’d have expected to see a few years ago. Ireland beat Kenya, showing better form than they did against South Africa.

You can’t throw the ball away in Sevens. Teams almost always want to use possession quickly – Scotland were way down on the scoreboard, so definitely did – so it is routine to get a yellow card if the officials think you did that. Likewise, taking a player out off the ball in a scoring situation is a standard penalty try and yellow card offence.

Bad news for Australia, who were beaten 17-22 by France.

England beat Samoa 19-15 but they were helped a great deal by a red card to Samoa, which was the result of two yellow card offences. The Samoan player was distraught, and you have to say the game would have been in the balance.

All the first round matches went much as form might have expected, PNG ran Canada close, but lost 29-21. While Ireland dealt with Chile, the 17-12 scoreline wasn’t as comfortable as they would have hoped.

The next eight matches look like this, then:

Scotland vs Kenya
Argentina vs Canada
Australia vs France
England vs Samoa
New Zealand vs Russia
Fiji vs Japan
South Africa vs Ireland
USA vs Wales

95,000 tickets have been sold for the event so far, including all the three-day tickets.

A lot of pundits on the Sevens circuit appear to be favouring Fiji for the win. Ben Ryan has picked out Semi Kunatani (“the Beast”) as a man to watch.

Exactly. One year out from the Olympics, the NZRU suddenly realized Malakai Fekitoa, Waisake Naholo and David Raikuna had no New Zealand passports, and would not have the necessary five year residency to apply. Don’t know if any of them eventually got passports but they didn’t go to Rio.

For the major rugby nations, Olympic eligibility is unlikely to be an issue in the future, It became one in Rio, because the requirement was only recognized at a late date.

For the likes of Hong Kong and Japan, however, it will likely be ongoing. The prize of playing on the HSBC sevens circuit (with less stringent eligibility standards) is rich enough for them to play their strongest sides, regardless of whether all the players are Olympic-qualified. Indeed, Japan beat Germany to win a regular place on next season’s sevens circuit with a similar squad to the one going to San Francisco this weekend.

We won’t know until much closer to 2020 whether these smaller unions have managed to encourage players to naturalize, or if they’ll need to select different squads for the Tokyo Olympics to the ones which usually appear in other sevens events.

“no need to preach to the converted”

I don’t think the broader rugby public is converted to sevens, however. You can see that by the lack of coverage. This isn’t a US leg on the HSBC Sevens circuit, it’s the Sevens World Cup. The football World Cup wasn’t limited to coverage in Russia, and next year’s rugby World Cup won’t be limited to coverage in Japan.

There are simple things which aren’t being done well. The tournament starts on Friday, and yet the official website for the event still has no details of who has been named in the squads. The pages are all set up, but there’s nothing behind the tabs.

Sevens is a way to get kids into the sport. It’s especially valuable when we have so many headlines about concussion, dangerous tackles, and leading players retiring early through injury.

I’ll enjoy the occasion anyway. However, Moscow was a missed opportunity five years ago, so it will be a shame if rugby doesn’t take full advantage of the platform we have this weekend.

I’m talking about coverage in the places which usually cover international rugby, such as NZ Herald, the SMH, UK Daily Telegraph, L’Equipe, Walesonline, Irish Times, Sport24 etc.

The South African coverage has been quite good, but it’s mostly cursory stuff elsewhere.

I understand that many rugby supporters are ambivalent at best about sevens but tent pole tournaments ought to be an opportunity to generate more engagement for the sport overall, not just in the host country.

I’m confident that the event in San Francisco will be well-attended, but I’d wager there’s a large part of the rugby public ignorant of the fact there’s a World Cup due this weekend. Even those who do know probably don’t have much of a sense of who the form teams might be.

If you build momentum up to an event, then you get a lot more carry-over into increasing participation, and enthusiasm for events at all age groups. Sevens got far more in-depth coverage ahead of the Olympics than we are seeing ahead of this World Cup.

Japan has announced its squads for San Francisco. They also got tripped up with Olympic eligibility for Rio, with two players applying for passports that didn’t get granted in time. Nevertheless, the men’s side did creditably, scoring a shock win over New Zealand, and running England close.

Their women’s squad looks to be all Olympic qualified but the men’s side includes NZ born Joe Kamana; Fijians Josefa Lilidamu, Jose Seru & Jone Naikabula; and Tongan Tevita Tupou. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have yet naturalized, although all have probably lived in Japan long enough to do so. Fiji born veteran Kameli Raravou Soejima is also going. He was one of three naturalized players to make the Olympic squad in Rio.

Japan is guaranteed an Olympic sevens spot, so, if someone hasn’t naturalized yet, then they either don’t wish to, or want to get bit closer to the Games to see if they are likely to be selected.

The first round of matches will feature the following sides:

Kenya (9th seed) vs Tonga (24th seed)
Canada (10th seed) vs Jamaica (23rd seed)
France vs Papua New Guinea
Wales vs Zimbabwe
Samoa vs Hong Kong
Russia vs Uganda
Japan vs Uruguay
Ireland (16th seed) vs Chile (17th seed)

Then, the match winners go up against the top eight seeds in the following order:

South Africa vs Ireland or Chile
Fiji vs Japan or Uruguay
New Zealand vs Russia or Uganda
England vs Samoa or Hong Kong
USA vs Wales or Zimbabwe
Australia vs France or PNG
Argentina vs Canada or Jamaica
Scotland vs Kenya or Tonga

It’s sevens, so all results are possible. Red and yellow cards are just as much a talking point in sevens as they have been in the longer code recently. For instance, the tactic of lifting a jumper in open play to take a kick-off probably has a longer history in sevens than fifteens.

It’s much harder to be competitive when you are playing six against seven, rather than fourteen against fifteen, so poor judgement by one player could be costly for a more fancied side.

South Africa are right to be wary of Ireland. As top seeds, they would probably have hoped for slightly easier first-up opposition. Only Fiji and New Zealand have what – on the surface at least – look like straightforward routes to the next round.

If first round results go as expected, England will meet Samoa. That’s a match the English should win but the Samoans have occasionally shown signs of what made them one of the most formidable sevens sides, so it’s no gimme.

At the bottom of the seeding list, Scotland and Argentina face the sternest tests.Canada and Kenya both won rounds on the sevens circuit and could trouble anyone. Wales didn’t pick up many points on the sevens circuit and yet they had a habit of pushing top sides to the end, so USA won’t fancy meeting them. Similarly, Australia will not take France for granted.

Given that it was an issue in Rio, if it was going to be sorted out easily for Tokyo, then you’d expect everyone would have passports already. They don’t, because not everyone born in the territory automatically gets a passport. You can be entitled to a passport but still need to apply for one. Depending who you are, you might then have to forsake any others you hold.

Skier Glavatsky-Yeadon is Hong Kong born, a permanent resident, and represented HK on the Grand Prix circuit but would have needed to give up his other passports to get one for HKSAR, something he didn’t want to do. He competed for Britain instead. Hong Kong does recognize some forms of dual nationality but, usually, only if you are Chinese.

It’s a difficult decision for professional sportsmen, and not one you necessarily want to make until you have to. Giving up other passports may limit your career opportunities, so the choice is made as much with the head as the heart.

Hong Kong sevens could decide to select only passport holders but that’s not the current policy. Partly, because the hope is to encourage players to apply for passports after having good experience representing the side.

Olympic eligibility is different from World Rugby eligibility, and that caused headaches last time, even for high profile players like Quade Cooper. If HK qualifies, all their players will have need HKSAR passports to be eligible. Not all currently have them.

The attendance should be good. After all, the Las Vegas leg of the HSBC Sevens circuit draws good crowds. By contrast, the turnout five years ago in Moscow was below even pessimistic expectations. World Rugby will be much happier in San Francisco, and is a major reason they selected the venue,

My disappointment has been the absence of any decent press build-up to the tournament The rugby media was far more active in previewing the last Olympic and Commonwealth Games tournaments. It now appears that the sport rode on the publicity coattails of those major events. World Rugby has been far less successful in grabbing press attention for its own event.

It’s not a question of trying to plant stories two weeks before the opening matches. It’s more that the rugby public is almost entirely ignorant of the main stories happening at the Sevens World Cup and this is something which should have been nurtured all through the season.

Contrast this week’s coverage with what we saw ahead of the Olympics. In New Zealand, there was a huge fuss when Kurt Baker and Selica Winiata weren’t selected for the mens and womens teams respectively. Baker was so upset with the snub, he turned down the chance to be names as a reserve.

There won’t always be controversial selections to get headlines but it wouldn’t hurt to have more than the plain announcements, which is mostly what we have had to settle for so far.

Several South African stars are missing through injury, while another two have elected to stay with Super Rugby. Nevertheless, they have an impressive-looking squad, because they have successfully rotated players throughout the season. By contrast, England have largely stuck with the same experienced core but suffered a late blow when Dan Bibby – one of the stars at the Olympics, was injured in a warm-up tournament. There’s a good story to be told about the different approaches of the teams.

Fiji’s sevens squad is also worth highlighting. It was big news when many fifteens stars, like Quade Cooper and Bryan Habana, tried to make it to the Olympics but failed to make the cut. If anything, the codes have been getting further apart but Fiji have selected four players all playing club rugby in France: Josua Tuisova, Leone Nakarawa, Semi Kunatani and Semi Radradra. That’s some serious firepower.

The average rugby punter doesn’t follow the cut and thrust of the HSBC Sevens circuit, so there’s little awareness of the different tactics sides bring to the sport. If you don’t whet the appetite well in advance, giving the players and teams some character and colour, then there’s a danger that the event won’t get the TV ratings World Rugby are hoping for.

One of the big criticisms of sevens is that matches don’t leave many indelible memories. A World Cup ought to have everyone feeling that the stakes have been raised. If, instead, a few weeks after the tournament finishes, general rugby supporters have forgotten all about it, then we’ll have missed a chance.

From my parochial perspective, one advantage the World Cup has over the Olympics is that Wales, Scotland & England can compete separately, rather than under the Team GB banner. While they do so at the Commonwealth Games too, that event does not include teams like US, Argentina, France, Ireland etc.

Also, one of the Olympic sides is always the host which, in the case of Rio, meant a weak entrant. In a field of only twelve sides, that can become significant. In Tokyo, Japan will automatically qualify, which is no bad thing, but they usually walk the Asian qualifier, so the next Olympics will include a relative lightweight like Korea, or Hong Kong.

Doesn’t always go that way. England once saw red against Argentina in the first five minutes but still won.

NZ very nearly beat the Lions in the second Test, playing a man down for nearly an hour.