16 women’s and 24 men’s teams are all set to fight it out for Rugby World Cup Sevens silverware at AT&T Park in San Francisco this weekend.
Over 95,000 fans are expected to attend across three days of pulsating action at the venue, which has been transformed from its traditional baseball diamond format into a spectacular home for rugby sevens.
Ahead of a mouth-watering weekend, USA men’s captain Madison Hughes admits they’ll be aiming to inspire the crowd with their performances.
“Having the opportunity to play in the marquee sevens event here in the US is just so exciting. Hopefully we can do well, put in a good performance so those new to rugby can get really excited about it,” he said.
Meanwhile, reigning Rugby World Cup Sevens champions in both the men’s and women’s events, New Zealand, will be looking to retain their crowns in San Francisco.
“Winning the last Rugby World Cup Sevens in Moscow 2013 was a pretty special moment – we were all extremely inexperienced. It was incredible to take a Rugby World Cup home and a title that we’d never won before. It’s definitely going to give us extra motivation to do the same again here in San Francisco,” said Sarah Goss, New Zealand women’s captain.
“It’s going to be extremely tough with the knock-out format and the high quality of teams, but I have full confidence in the girls and the way we’ve been performing over the last few months. We’re just really excited to start playing on Friday and we’re extremely hungry to defend our title and take another Rugby World Cup Sevens home to New Zealand.”
New Zealand men’s captain Scott Curry added: “It’s awesome to be here in San Francisco. To be playing at AT&T Park in a baseball stadium is pretty unique and I’m sure the atmosphere is going to be electric. We’ve had a good week building up to the competition, we’ve trained really well and we’re looking forward to the weekend. It’s going to be a tough task to defend our title and as it’s a knock-out format we’ll be focusing on one game at a time.”
South Africa and Australia will enter the men’s and women’s competitions respectively in good form after claiming the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series titles last month, with Blitzboks captain Philip Snyman looking forward to the challenge.
“Everybody is focusing on the Rugby World Cup Sevens, it’s an interesting new format with knock-out stages from the start meaning you have to be at your best from the get go and get out of the blocks as quickly as possible. Where the World Series was a marathon, this is more like a one hundred metre sprint,” he said.
“We can take a lot of confidence from our performance in Paris and we’ve had a boost with a couple of players returning from injury so we’re really happy with where the squad is at the moment. Playing in San Francisco is a dream come true and playing in a baseball stadium is really interesting. Rugby is growing fast in America and we’re looking forward to a wonderful weekend of sevens.”
A new and innovative ‘knock out’ style format will see every match count meaning both men’s and women’s teams will have to win every match to be crowned World Cup winners.
With thanks to World Rugby