FROM THE BLINDSIDE:We're always talking about trying to get Irish players to play a more expansive game and sevens can help with that. So let's join the party, writes ALAN QUINLAN
A WHILE back, I got a call from the former Ireland under-19s player Mark Meenan. He’s on the board of the Hong Kong Irish Chamber of Commerce these days and he asked me if I’d come out there and give a talk on the weekend of the Hong Kong Sevens tournament. “Have you ever been?” he asked.
“Never,” I said. “Well, get ready,” he said. “It’s a crazy, crazy, crazy weekend.” He wasn’t wrong. It was an unbelievable experience. The crowds were massive from morning till night, with people coming to the stadium at seven in the morning and staying all day.
People were there for fun first and foremost and the atmosphere was buzzing all the way through it. There were 40,000 people there having the time of their lives, enjoying a party with a bit of rugby thrown in.
I’d never been to a sevens tournament before but the Hong Kong one is obviously the biggest one with the best and longest tradition. The crowd was made up of locals and ex-pats from all over the world, with the whole stadium set up for more than just a rugby tournament. Although there were 40,000 people through the gates each day, not all of them were sitting in the stands watching the rugby. There were places to socialise and places to eat, places to watch music and places to get a drink. It was one big party.
The South Terrace was the place to be. Tradition means people go there in fancy dress and the whole stand fills up early in the morning. From that point on, it’s one person out for every person in and people queue for three or four hours to get into it.
As the day goes on, they give out prizes for the best costume and the best dancers and all that kind of carry-on. I was looking at it thinking I was a long way from home. I was just amazed by the whole event.
Fiji beat New Zealand in the final over there and some of the skills they produced were phenomenal. I was intrigued by the endurance of the guys as well because it’s actually a tougher game than most people realise. It’s very fast and you need a huge level of fitness to survive in it. But some of it is a joy to watch, the angles of running and the offloading were unbelievable.
We’ve never really taken to sevens rugby in Ireland. Lots of people were asking me why there wasn’t an Irish team in the competition and I struggled for an answer.
I’ve asked around a bit since I’ve come home and I’ve been told by a few people in the IRFU that there’s steps being taken towards putting together a set-up, alright.
I get the impression as well that the IRB are keen for each of the rugby-playing countries to enter a team in the World Series, ahead of a possible qualifying tournament for the Olympics in 2016, so we’ll have to get our act together.
Obviously, finances are a problem. In some countries, you have full-time sevens players on centralised contracts but I have a feeling people would take a bit of convincing before the IRFU would make moves towards doing something like that here.
Maybe you could have four or five full-time centrally contracted players in Ireland but I doubt if that day is very close.
Most of the guys playing in Hong Kong were full-time sevens players but some of them were young guys coming through the academies. I met Ieuan Evans out there who was telling me Alex Cuthbert was one of the big stand-out players in last year’s competition. Eleven months later, he was a revelation in the Six Nations.
It can be used as a stepping stone in that way, getting players exposure and maybe convincing some of the regions back home to take a chance on them and give them full contracts as a result.
But more and more, I think you will come to see the game grow into itself and not just feed into the 15-man game. Some players will naturally just be better sevens players than 15s, especially as the full-size game gets to be more physical. The bigger the sport gets – especially with it being in the Olympics – the more sponsors will come in and the more chances there will be for guys to make a career out of it.
The thinking is it’s going to be a global game in the next 15 years or so. Guys like John Kirwan, Jonathan Davies and Jason Robinson have signed up as sponsors’ ambassadors and they’re saying it will get more and more popular, especially in the Asian and African countries where 18-stone props and six-foot-seven locks might not be all that commonplace. It’s not hard to see it becoming the rugby equivalent of Twenty20 cricket. It’s getting big in non-traditional countries like Russia and the US; even countries like Kenya and China and Thailand are putting together competitive teams.
In Ireland, we’ve always seen it as more a bit of craic than a serious game, which has left us miles behind the curve. It’s always been seen as a good day out, a bit of fun. But the countries that do well in it take it very seriously.
The World Series has been going since 1999 and the likes of New Zealand, England, Fiji, South Africa and Samoa go in big for it. But we have no history of it at all, really.
It’s a shame because it’s a game that can suit a lot of people and I think we’re probably missing out by leaving it to the rest of the world.
You don’t have to be the biggest player around to play it but you do have to be very fit, quick and skilful. It’s not as physical as the 15-man game because you’re not doing as much counter-rucking and generally you’re being tackled around the legs rather than shipping huge-impact collisions at every hit.
A game without all the scrums and lineouts and rucking and mauling could suit plenty of players if we got into it. The bit of freedom could suit some guys and maybe the fact that it’s less confrontational would attract players as well.
For all we know, there could be a huge untapped reservoir of Irish sevens talent out there. We’ll never know if we don’t give it a try.
From what I hear, the IRFU are getting into it a bit more now than in the past. They’re starting to promote it over the coming weeks. There are domestic sevens competition coming up for senior AIL clubs, junior teams, women’s teams, as well as underage boys’ and girls’ teams. The last weekend of this month is being set aside as sevens weekend in the provinces, with the finals on a fortnight later on May 12th.
But I do think that it is a form of the game that would help us if we ever fostered a culture of it. Even if it’s just as a stepping stone for guys on their way up who are trying to improve their handling skills and passing skills so they make a bigger impact on the 15-man game, that’s still something.
We’re always talking about trying to get Irish players to play a more expansive game and sevens can help with that. It makes you think more about your lines of running, your evasion, your pace off the mark, everything.
In Hong Kong, I experienced the game up close for the first time. While there was all sorts of partying going on in the stands, the stuff on the pitch was deadly serious. The days of it being treated as a bit of a laugh are long gone and these guys are hugely fit, talented and focused. The pace of the game and the non-stop intensity of it for seven minutes a side just blew me away.
I watched it thinking that Ireland are missing out by not throwing ourselves into it the way other countries do. If we don’t get a sevens team up and running soon, the game could leave us behind. A lot of other countries are far ahead of us, so the party is going on without us.
