2022-23 Men's World Rugby Sevens Series Begins with Olympic Quotas on the Line

With the 2022-23 season set to begin, the top men’s rugby sevens teams will have more of an incentive to perform well with Olympic quotas on the line. Along with the overall series title, the top four nations will also qualify a spot to the 2024 Olympics.

The 2022-23 Men’s World Series will consist of 11 stops, up two from last season. Hong Kong (adding two stops, including the first which starts today), Australia (Sydney), New Zealand (Hamilton) and South Africa (Cape Town) are all returning after missing the last two season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The United Arab Emirates (Dubai) will only host one event this season while Spain (Malaga and Seville) has been completely dropped. See the current schedule below.

The other big change is the amalgamation of England, Scotland and Wales into a single Great Britain team. Due to this, Japan avoided relegation while the 2022 Challenger Series winner, Uruguay will join the series as one of the 15-nation core team for the very first time. The other core nations include Argentina, Australia, Canada, Fiji, France, Ireland, Kenya, New Zealand, Samoa, South Africa, Spain and the United States.

Each tournament will consist of 16 teams, the core teams plus one invited team where the winner of the cup obtains 22 points. Second place gets 19 points, third 17 points decreasing down to 1 point for the joint 15th place finishers. At the end of the series, the nation with the most points will be the title winner along with the top 4 qualifying to the Olympics.

The defending series champion is Australia who despite only winning a single event was the most consistent nation where they finished in the top four in 7/9 stops. They were closely followed by South Africa and defending World and Olympic champions Fiji.

Olympic qualification will be hotly contested. Along with the above three teams, Argentina had a great season and won bronze at the Olympics. A qualification through the World Series here would make the continental qualifier more interesting with Uruguay and Chile looking to take advantage.

Perennial powerhouse New Zealand will also seek to return to the top after missing out in the first half of the previous season. Ireland, bronze medalist from the World Cup could be considered a dark horse along with the newly combined power of Great Britain.