Rugby: All Blacks Sevens coach Clark Laidlaw confident more sevens tournaments will return to New Zealand

All Blacks Sevens coach Clark Laidlaw. Photo / Photosport

New Zealand Rugby has begun early discussions around ways to keep sevens in the public eye after losing the long-standing stop on the World Rugby Sevens Series for the foreseeable future.

A revamped world series will be revealed by World Rugby later this year, expected to feature seven events which will host both men’s and women’s tournaments, with a focus on fan and commercial growth to enable greater investment back into sevens.

World Rugby is yet to announce the host nations, however the organisation has confirmed New Zealand will not be one of them.

The decision brings a curtain down on more than 20 years of the New Zealand event being a staple of the summer calendar, providing great exposure for the code on our shores.

All Blacks Sevens coach Clark Laidlaw said it was important that there was still some offering of the game to help promote it to the next generation, and said there were ongoing discussions around what that product might look like.

“New Zealand Rugby are very supportive, and they know we need to get sevens here so we’ve already started planning behind the scenes around bringing tournaments here. We’ve just got to work out what the World Series actually looks like so we can put them in,” Laidlaw said.

“I’m really confident New Zealand Rugby will support the teams. They’ve been a great supporter of sevens; I think if New Zealand Rugby hadn’t supported sevens, how would we have went against Fiji over the last 20 years?

“We’re really confident that there will be sevens here because ... we need to inspire the next generation to want to play sevens. It’s high on our agenda as a rugby union.”

It was a sentiment shared by All Blacks Sevens captain Sam Dickson, who implored New Zealand Rugby to assess how to best get the code to potential stars of the future without having a yearly showcase featuring the best teams in the world.

“I guess that’s up to the NZRU to pull finger and get some good nationals or some local tournaments going just so we can keep on building our team in the future — not only our team by the Black Ferns Sevens as well. Hopefully there’s something in the pipeline,” Dickson said.

Of the 22 men’s world series tournaments contested in New Zealand, the All Blacks Sevens won 10 of them and reached the final three other times — including this past weekend where they were beaten 14-12 by Argentina.

The women’s series was only added to the Kiwi event in 2020 — following a successful four-team showcase tournament in 2019. Both full tournaments were won by the Black Ferns Sevens, as was the 2019 Fast Four event.

Laidlaw said there was no clear picture as to what a new sevens offering in New Zealand could look like, but suggested they were looked at playing smaller tournaments between world series events — a shorter season likely to allow for those opportunities — and hinted at the potential of a tournament featuring teams around the Pacific such as Fiji, Australia and Samoa.

“I just know we’re all motivated to bring sevens here. There are Oceania tournaments that happen every year, there’s opportunities to maybe play some tournaments between tournaments. I’m excited around what we can put on here and there’s definitely an appetite for us to play sevens in New Zealand.”