Dubai : The planned debut of Rugby Sevens at the 2016 Olympics has taken the smaller format of the sport out from under the shadows of traditional Rugby 15s.
That's according to England fly-half Ben Gollings and New Zealand coach Gordon Tietjens — both of whom arrived in Dubai off the back of a Commonwealth Games appearance in Delhi, in which New Zealand won the gold.
Speaking on the opening day of the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens, Tietjens said: "The Olympics has given the [Sevens World] Series a major boost. More players will want to be involved in the game to eye an opportunity to be an athlete at 2016."
Gollings agreed: "The World Cup and Rugby 15s is huge but so is winning an Olympic gold medal. There are going to be people with different aspirations. There will be players that can cover both codes but there will be some that strive for that one thing."
Tietjens added: "You'll still get those who use it as a launching pad but because of their involvement in Sevens, they'll want to remain involved when it comes to picking those sides for a Commonwealth Games or an Olympics."
Rugby Sevens has been around since the 1800s, almost as long as Rugby 15s.
Stepping stone
However the game has always been looked upon as a stepping stone, or training model for the full version of the sport. That's even despite the creation of the Sevens World Series, which kicked off in 1999.
Gollings added: "15s has been your bread and butter but now Sevens is going to do that for you. You've got to ask yourself if you really need to play 15s? If you look at the programmes now [for both forms] you physically can't double up — you can travel the world and earn a living this way."
Gollings pledged his future to Sevens, stating his hopes for an Olympic medal.
"If I can make it to the Olympics then great, if not hopefully I've influenced a lot along the way. I want to see this sport grow."
Asked if Sevens would eventually overtake 15s as T20 has done of Test cricket both thought the two forms could continue to complement one another.
Gollings argued that some of England's best 15s players [notably Ben Fodden] had been springboarded through the Sevens programme and benefited from the smaller version's ability to give players confidence to run with the ball and attack — attributes that make Sevens arguably more exciting to watch.
While Tietjens said that All Blacks coaches were now regularly releasing players to the Sevens squad to enhance speed agility and fitness. He added, 15s had been very difficult to watch in the past, but the rise of sevens had resulted in rule changes to speed the 15s game up.
England
Podium finish
England Fly-half Ben Gollings hopes to remedy the recent Commonwealth Games fourth and Sevens World Series fifth placings, with a podium finish in the 2010/11 series in Dubai.
"We were very disappointed, having come off a good year the year before we had wanted to take it a step further. But we couldn't get over the line in some of the bigger games, which cost us dearly — If we had nicked a few of the semi finals that we got into it could have been a different season."
Gollings now believes, "the boys have enough experience to understand what its like to play on the series — hopefully we can utilise that to our benefit — to keep a squad together for more than 12 months, anyone who knows Sevens knows that's a good recipe for success."
— A.H.
