South Africa and Australia crowned as Sevens series concludes
The HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2018 Awards in Paris brought a fitting end to an enthralling season which saw South Africa and Australia crowned men’s and women’s series champions respectively.
It has been one of the most competitive seasons on record as both the women’s and men’s series were decided by just two-point differences. South Africa fought an incredible battle with Fiji in the men’s series to retain their title with victory at the final round in Paris, while Olympic champions Australia won their second overall title ahead of rivals New Zealand on the women’s series after reaching the podium at every one of the five rounds.
The end of season awards provided a chance to celebrate the men’s and women’s sevens players, coaches and teams that are the stars, ambassadors and role models of the sport.
World Rugby Chairman Bill Beaumont said: “It has been another tremendous year for the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, which continues to go from strength to strength.
“I hugely admire the skill and physicality of rugby sevens and thank the players for their outstanding commitment which makes the series such a success. It is great to see the series capturing the imagination on and off the field with year-on-year increases in attendances, broadcast and fan-engagement figures, and that is a great testament to the players, coaches, host unions and everyone involved with the events.
“Rugby sevens took a quantum leap when it joined the Olympic programme in 2016 and now we look forward to a Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco in just 40 days time in an iconic city and a market with great potential. It promises to be a thrilling and spectacular event.”
Top try-scorers
Portia Woodman is no stranger to the top try-scorer accolade and her 43 tries have helped the Black Ferns Sevens win three rounds in finishing as runners-up to Australia.
Carlin Isles followed in his USA team-mate Perry Baker’s footsteps by claiming the men’s series award with an outstanding 49 tries. Upon receiving the award Isles said: “I’ve come a long way. I want to thank my teammates who share the workload. It is a blessing for me to be standing here.”
Rookies of the Year
Eroni Sau is the second Fijian to be named Rookie of the Year for the men’s series after being a clear winner in the fan vote ahead of his compatriot Alosio Naduva and Australia’s Ben O’Donnell. The 28-year-old featured in all 10 rounds in his debut season, using his powerful physique to score 37 tries.
France’s Coralie Bertrand, meanwhile, claimed the women’s accolade, having featured in all five rounds and helped Les Bleues enjoy their best season, reaching a first-ever Cup final in Kitakyushu and semi-finals in Langford and Paris to clinch the series bronze medal.
Fair Play Award
This award, selected by the match officials, recognises the teams who showcase rugby’s values of integrity, passion, solidarity, discipline and respect. Japan were awarded the women’s accolade after an event that saw them lose their core team status on the series, with Kenya the men’s recipients following an exciting season which saw them reach the final in both Vancouver and Hong Kong.
TAG Heuer Don’t Crack Under Pressure Award
These inaugural awards voted for by fans went to Australia’s Ellia Green and Ireland’s Mark Roche.
Green’s try against New Zealand in the Cup final of the HSBC Sydney Sevens, when she finished off Emilee Cherry’s break, beat Maria Ribera’s try to sealed a first-ever series win over Australia in Kitakyushu and Charity Williams’ last-gasp winning try against Ireland in Langford.
Roche’s kick with the final play of the match against England to snatch the bronze medal for invitational team Ireland at the HSBC London Sevens was a clear winner of the men’s award, beating Fijian Alosio Naduva’s last-gasp winning try against Australia in the Singapore Cup final and Matias Osadczuk’s break and calm head to send Renzo Barbier over for the winning try in Argentina’s Cup semi-final against South Africa in Las Vegas.
Capgemini Coach of the Series
Another inaugural category, selected by the series’ global innovation partner Capgemini, was won by New Zealand women’s coach Alan Bunting after successive victories in the last three rounds of the series in Japan, Canada and France as well as the Commonwealth Games title in April.
South Africa coach Neil Powell who guided the Blitzboks to retaining their series title picked up the men’s coach of the series award and paid tribute to his victorious team: “The mental focus and composure they showed was fantastic, all credit to the boys for believing in their success. We had everything to play for and the team did an incredible job, not just today but over the whole season. I also want to congratulate Fiji on an amazing season, they were phenomenal.”
DHL Impact Player
The race to be named DHL Impact Player of the Year in both the men’s and women’s series went right down to the final matches. In total 16 players from 12 nations won tournament awards during this season’s series.
New Zealand’s Michaela Blyde was delighted to win the women’s award: “This is pretty special. I’m shocked and truly grateful. I put this down to my teammates who create the opportunities for me and I thank them.”
Justin Douglas of Canada won the men’s award which credits players for their all-round game including factors such as number of tackles, carries, line breaks and offloads as well as tries and points scored.
HSBC Dream Team
The men’s and women’s HSBC Dream Team takes into consideration players’ performances across the season and previous nominations in the individual tournament dream teams. Series champions Australia have two players in the women’s HSBC Dream Team in Evania Pelite and Emma Tonegato, while runners-up New Zealand have two in flyers Portia Woodman and Michaela Blyde. Russia’s Baizat Khamidova, Spain’s Patricia García and France’s Montserrat Amédée complete the line-up.
The men’s HSBC Dream Team features four players from series runners-up Fiji, who won five of the ten rounds. The Fijians included are Kalione Nasoko, captain Jerry Tuwai, series second top point scorer Amenoni Nasilasila and Rookie of the Year Sau. They are joined by Kenya’s Oscar Ouma, Australia’s Ben O’Donnell and Dylan Sage from series champions South Africa.
Attention now turns to the Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 in San Francisco from 20-22 July, where 24 men’s and 16 women’s teams will battle it out to become world champions over three days of exciting action.
The 2018-19 HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series kicks off with a new addition to the series, the HSBC USA Women’s Sevens at Glendale, Colorado on 20-21 October 2018. The full schedules for the 2018-19 series will be announced soon.
In other news:
Comments on RugbyPass
An on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
11 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to comments