Dubai: Rugby fever hits town today as a historic three-day 2011 Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens kicks off with a multitude of landmark firsts at The Sevens Stadium from 9.40am.
As the second stage on the new IRB HSBC Sevens World Series nine-leg circuit, 16 of the world's greatest short-form nations will battle it out on Friday and Saturday in order to peg back Fiji, who recorded a season-opening win on Australia's Gold Coast, last weekend.
Within this showcase event, the UAE will make its World Sevens Series home-stage debut, just a year since emerging independently after the break-up of the region-wide Arabian Gulf Rugby Football Union's (AGRFU) umbrella.
Game's influence
Tasked with spreading the game's influence among the local population, the UAE Rugby Association is fielding two Emiratis in their 12-man squad, who will each go down in the annals of rugby history as being the first nationals to don the UAE's crest and colours at the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens.
Cyrus Humayon and Mohammad Hassan Rahma take these pioneering strides onto the field, most fittingly on the UAE's 40th National Day. Their task as a team of amateurs is to prove that their newly-formed association is on the right path to high performance, despite being one of the rugby playing world's newest arrivals.
"Playing against the best professional teams in the world is going to be a massive challenge but our guys are really looking forward to having this opportunity and learning from it," said UAE coach Wayne Marsters.
Women's teams
In another milestone, eight international women's teams will compete for honours in their own tournament under sanctioning from the IRB for the first time ever, this weekend.
The Challenge Cup is a taste of things to come for the ladies game as a first- ever IRB Women's World Series looks to kicks-off in 2012.
Gary Chapman, president of Emirates Group Services and Dnata, said: "With rugby fever still gripping the globe as New Zealand celebrates winning the IRB Rugby World Cup in October, this heightened level of passion for rugby — combined with celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the UAE National Day — should result in an unforgettable carnival atmosphere to rank alongside the best we've seen at The Sevens."
Wider festivities get underway today with more than 160 teams playing on the centre and surrounding pitches in junior and veteran competitions, as well as international and regional invitational sevens tournaments in men's and women's formats from a social right through to semi-professional standard. Finals to all these events will wrap up on Saturday night in the main stadium just before the headline World Series Dubai Stage finale from 8.18pm, expected to be held in front of thousands of fans and screened to millions worldwide.
Beth Coalter, IRB Sevens manager, said at yesterday's official tournament launch: "The IRB HSBC Sevens World Series was broadcast to over 147 countries worldwide last year, taking up almost 1,200 hours of live coverage with half a million supporters attending in total across the eight stages.
"With 2016 Olympic inclusion and HSBC's title-sponsorship, the game has grown exponentially and the series goes to nine stages this year with Japan on board. We hope to go up to ten by 2013 with that tenth stage being in South America."
