The Las Vegas IRB World Sevens Series event was a massive success last month! Here are my thoughts (despite being a few weeks late) on the tournament, both on and off the field.

It was a pretty hectic weekend for fulfilling my duties with Belmont Shore in the Las Vegas Invitational (LVI) and then fulfilling my media responsibilities.

As we saw in Robin Heymann’s blog a few weeks back it’s a long couple of days. I hope you enjoy some my snaps which hope to give you a real essence of what the tournament was about.

Show impressive US Women the $$!

The LVI rugby tournament – which took place right next to the Sam Boyd Stadium – was a major success. Over 100 teams took part in various 15s and 7s competitions, ranging from social to serious, young to old, and included both male and female athletes. Several fields hosted this well organized event, with two finals from that tournament being played inside the Sam Boyd Stadium during day 1 of the IRB Sevens event. Those were the international women’s sevens section and the Championship Cup Sevens Series (CCS).

The Women Eagle Sevens team continues to impress and just lost out 10-0 to China in the final. I remember watching how well the Women Sevens Eagles played in Dubai during the 2009 Rugby World Cup – just losing out 14-12 to New Zealand in the Cup semi finals. USA Rugby should invest in this program as the women’s side has a very realistic chance to be the best sevens team in the world.

Juggling Belmont Shore & Media Mayhem

I was fortunate to be a part of the other final played inside the stadium – which was the USA club sevens final seeing Belmont Shore taking on the Chicago Lions.

It was an amazing opportunity for us to be a part of the IRB tournament, and taking home the $7,500 prize money via a 31-7 Belmont Shore victory. I did have a laugh with some of the USA 7s boys about us ‘part timers’ taking home more money than the national side!

The crowd at the tournament was superb. Plenty of people dressed up for the occasion, and the sevens spirit was infectious. I was roaming the stadium on both days doing some on-camera work for the stadium big screen (thanks to tournament organizers USA Sevens LLC) so got to see a fair share of the spectators. I think I must have walked around the place 300 times!

The Kenyans were by far the loudest and craziest section - as expected! Samoa and Fiji also both had thousands of fans – which was evident as hundreds streamed onto the field after the final match.

The tournament was just as fun and well organized as any other that I have been to on the circuit. But in addition to that, the Vegas nightlife added some spice for the travelling spectators. It was superb catching up with everyone who flew in for the event, many old friends and team mates, as well as friends currently playing on the circuit.

UR7s represents

It was a pleasure to meet all the characters from UR7s.com – Tom Burwell, Robin ‘ladies man’ Heymann and Barnaby Harrison.

Robin was my Media MVP for the weekend with his sensational match-by-match text commentary. Even after the tournament at 3am in the morning whilst we were celebrating he was sending me play-by-play updates!

It was indeed a legendary weekend, both on and off the field, with the Las Vegas IRB Sevens event a ‘must see’ in 2011!

For me personally it was a barn storming weekend – LIVE interviews for the stadium big screen, playing for champions Belmont Shore, texting UR7s Robin updates from the Kenyan crowd – and of course a few drinks on the town mixed with 4 hours total weekend sleep!

National TV exposure

The best news after the event was that the TV channel ABC featured an hour-long rugby show, which included some tournament highlights as well as an in-depth look at the USA team. Instead of showing 60 minutes of pure highlights – with many audience members unsure of the rules – the show focused on behind the scenes and inside the USA camp via various player stories.

It was also key for the promotion of rugby that the Eagles team won the Bowl event in dramatic fashion, followed by captain Kevin Swiryn’s emotional wedding proposal to his girlfriend directly after the final!

In fact as I write this article the same 60-minute rugby production from the Las Vegas Sevens event is being aired on ESPN classic. Not only is this ground breaking for USA Rugby but plenty of sponsors signed up for this tournament and even more are in for next year. More sponsors for this rugby event will make them more likely to invest in USA Rugby, and hopefully it will help solve some of the challenges American rugby faces…

The newly engaged Kevin Swiryn and I in the aftermath

The victorious Belmont Boys!

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