How the SVNS World Championship opens the door for new challengers

The HSBC SVNS World Championship Series is set to kick off a new finals format in Hong Kong, and one decision – restarting the ladder – presents the competition with a brilliant opportunity.

The 2025-26 series has seen the historically strong teams dominate in both the men’s and women’s competitions, especially in the latter, with Australia and New Zealand being the last two sides standing in every tournament so far.

The men’s competition saw 22 competition points separating the runners-up Fiji from third-place finishers Australia, with the New York final deciding the regular season ladder leaders in South Africa.

Yet, while ladders are the inevitable, ultimate metric of sevens success, the numbers don’t tell the full story of how competitive this season has been.

On the surface, it appears to be the best versus the rest, but the decision to restart the ladder for the finals could turn the SVNS World Championship format on its head, in all the right ways.

Now, to be clear, a surprise winner in the finals of the World Series is exactly new; in fact, it’s been the norm since the introduction of the grand final leg in the 2023-24 SVNS series.

In the men’s competition, the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons saw Argentina top the leaderboard in the regular season. When the Grand Final leg arrived, the Pumas 7s fell away, with France and South Africa claiming top honours in those two seasons, respectively.

This was similarly the case in the 2023-24 women’s competition, where New Zealand, after topping the leaderboard in the regular season, fell away in Madrid to finish in third, with Australia defeating France to win the grand final.

In fact, the Black Ferns 7s are the only side so far in SVNS history to go on and be crowned champions in the Grand Final after topping the regular season leaderboard, with their defeat of Australia in Los Angeles last year.

Turning finals into a winner-takes-all scenario has proven to be a historical success for the HSBC SVNS, with the 2026 format now set to supercharge that across three weekends.

We’re even more primed for unpredictable results when you break down how each side has performed across the season.

Despite the men’s competition seeing South Africa and Fiji open up a decent lead come the end of the regular season, it is easy to forget that seven of the eight sides made at least one grand final across the six weekends of action, with Great Britain the only exception.

Even more so, including Fiji and South Africa, five teams finished in poll positions on more than one occasion, the other three sides being Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.

The women’s competition did see a more notable gap with Australia and New Zealand; however, four of the six remaining sides all claimed bronze at some point during those six weekends.

This opens the door for several challengers, with Australia’s women’s side in particular tending to slip up on several occasions at the business end: most notably, the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, where they failed to pick up podium finishes and went away empty-handed.

That is even before you get to the impact of SVNS 2, with the new competition giving four new challengers a decent runway to make an impact. Whether it will yield a side unseating one of the current eight teams, time will tell.

Of course, this is speculative, as the current ladder leaders will arrive in Hong Kong with all the confidence and momentum the regular season has given them.

However, as everyone who has played a game of rugby will know, finals are a different kettle of fish entirely.

While the new tiered format has proven successful so far in its first year, its ultimate metric of success will be a competitive finals series across the three weekends in Hong Kong, Valladolid and Bordeaux.

Given the new format, it would almost seem fitting that a surprise winner will emerge and turn the HSBC SVNS World Series on its head, once again.