Rugby sevens: Hamilton sevens to stage men and women

New Zealand's Sam Dickson in action during the Hamilton Sevens. Photosport

New Zealand Rugby has confirmed the Hamilton sevens will, from 2020, be a fully integrated men's and women's tournament.

Women were top of the agenda at NZR's first board meeting of the year. And the future looks bright.

NZR and the Players' Association are close to expanding the collective agreement to cover the country's top women's XVs players, with chief executive Steve Tew saying he expects announcements to be made in the next two weeks.

NZR is also, from next year, attempting to add another XVs tournament to complement club rugby, the Farah Palmer Cup and Black Ferns.

Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore addressed the board after his team's success at the World Cup, and NZR also announced on Friday the promotion of Dr Deb Robinson to the World Rugby Council.

On the back of the success of the Hamilton sevens, NZR appears to have heeded strong criticism from the likes of Portia Woodman around the absence of the Black Ferns sevens team.

The week previous Sydney got the jump on New Zealand by staging a three-day tournament involving both men and women. It was not without issues, with complaints around the women not being treated equally after playing knockout matches in the morning in-front of near empty stadiums.

Still, it was much better than no women's involvement at all.

NZR's contract for the sevens has one more year to run. The 2019 event will feature some form of women's invitational sevens competition, and Tew confirmed should they win the hosting rights for 2020-2023, Hamilton would then stage men and women equally.

Eighteen countries are bidding to host 10 World Series events from 2020.

"We are suggesting an integrated men's and women's tournament. We will now put our hat in the ring and see how that goes," Tew said.

"We contemplated whether to add women to the 2018 event but given the background of moving a tournament that was struggling in Wellington to a new city and the complications of running two tournaments in one venue, we decided not to do that but, clearly, we will be looking to do that in some form next year and that will be our approach for the tender."

In Hamilton earlier this month World Rugby boss Brett Gosper gave his seal of approval to the new tournament, suggesting the governing body would encourage and subsidise fully integrated events in future.

Tew said the set up around Waikato Stadium, which this year saw teams warm-up on the back field in-front of hospitality tents, was the perfect venue for men and women. But, unlike Sydney, NZR wants to maintain a two-day event which could see a push for a reduction in men's games.

"You either have to go to a three-day tournament which in our view is not the best for the players because it prolongs the tournament. And if you're wanting to treat the men and women on an equal footing as we would want to then sharing the ground and getting the timing of an integrated tournament is complex.

"I know World Rugby are looking at the format which will be part of this tender process.

"Our strong preference is for a two-day event and that's certainly the feedback we get from our players but it will be something World Rugby does and trying to get some consistency across the series.

"It might be we have to go to three days. At this stage we're open to having a general discussion with World Rugby. The good news about Hamilton is it's got enough space and has great facilities to be flexible."