Friday 30 October 2009

Entertain me Cecil

Another exciting couple of weeks of Sevens to look forward to. Borneo, Bangkok, South Africa, Australia’s Gold Coast, Singapore, and Cook Islands. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

I caught up with South Africa gaffer Paul Treu this week and he is pretty excited by the quality of youngsters he’s testing out at Middelburg and Singapore events. Just feel the Boks are going to be a little more battle hardened then the rest of their opponents come Dubai.

Watch out for their new playmaker, Cecil Afrika. If hype is to be believed (and I’m a sucker for hype and speculation) he is meant to be quality. Boks will take some stopping this season my friend (as Dallen Standford would say!)

We heart 7s!

The annual Varsity match between Oxford University and Cambridge University, taking place in December, will feature a couple of players familiar to the UK and USA Sevens circuit. Sandy Reid and James Greenwood will both be strutting their stuff for the light blues of Cambridge for the third year in succession.

It was nice to see the other day Greenwood citing winning the US Nationals with Old Blue (Sevens team based in New York) as one of his major rugby ambitions in a preview piece for the 10th December gig! Chris Wyles, former USA Sevens star now starting for Saracens, is another with a major ambition to return to Sevens one day, particularly in an Olympic guise.

No matter how successful you are in 15s, if 7s is in your DNA it’s hard to shirk off ones passion for the shortened form and a yearning to return that environment.

The UR7s office is inundated with emails and calls from people counting the clock down of the European 15s season, so they can strap on those bling white mouldies and do some dancing at the various 7s tournaments they have grown to love. The dark nights, monotonous training, and crash-bang-wallop culture creeping into 15s seems to be weighing a few people down…

ps - Check out what 'The Boss' (Tim 'de' Lacey) had to say this week about the changing landscape of 7s-a very interesting read.