2016–17 World Rugby Sevens Series Explained

The 2016–17 World Rugby Sevens Series, known for sponsorship reasons as the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series, was the 18th annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999–2000. South Africa won the Series with a comfortable 28-point margin over England; South Africa won five of the ten tournaments.

The 2016–17 Series also served as a qualifying tournament for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens. Nine of the core teams had already qualified but the four highest-placed finishers from among the remaining six core teams also gained qualification for the 2018 RWC Sevens.^[1]

Tour venues

The official schedule for the 2016–17 World Rugby Sevens Series was as follows:^[2]

- bgcolor="#efefef"	+ 2016–17 Venues	- bgcolor="#efefef" ! width=7%	Leg ! width=10%	Stadium ! width=7%	City ! width=10%	Date ! width=7%	Winner
			2–3 December 2016
			10–11 December 2016
			28–29 January 2017
			4–5 February 2017
			3–5 March 2017
			11–12 March 2017
			7–9 April 2017
			15–16 April 2017
			13–14 May 2017
			20–21 May 2017

There were no major changes to the schedule.

Standings

Final table:

2016–17 World Rugby Sevens – Series XVIII

Pos.		Dubai	Cape Town	Wellington	Sydney	Las Vegas	Vancouver	Hong Kong	Singapore	Paris	London	Points total
		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"	!	data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"	!	data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"	!	data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"	!	data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"	!	data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"		data-sort-type="number" style="border-top:1px solid transparent;"
1		22	19	22	22	22	19	19	12	22	13	192
2		17	22	10	19	13	22	10	17	15	19	164
3		19	13	19	13	19	17	22	10	10	8	150
4		10	17	12	17	15	13	13	13	17	10	137
5		8	10	5	12	17	15	15	19	13	15	129
6		13	5	7	15	12	10	17	15	7	12	113
7		12	15	17	1	5	3	8	7	19	22	109
8		3	3	15	3	10	10	10	22	5	17	98
9		5	7	13	10	10	12	12	3	8	10	90
10		15	10	5	10	3	8	2	8	5	7	73
11		10	8	10	7	5	1	5	5	10	5	66
12		5	12	8	2	8	5	7	10	1	5	63
13		7	1	3	5	7	7	1	5	12	3	51
14		1	5	2	8	1	1	5	2	2	2	29
bgcolor=#fcc	15	bgcolor=#fcc align=left		1	1	1	5	2	2	3	1	3	1	20
bgcolor=#ffc	16	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		–	–	–	–	1	5	–	–	–	–	6
bgcolor=#ffc	17	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		2	2	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	4
bgcolor=#ffc	18	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		–	–	1	1	–	–	–	–	–	–	2
bgcolor=#ffc	19	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	1	1	2
bgcolor=#ffc	20	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		–	–	–	–	–	–	1	–	–	–	1
bgcolor=#ffc	21	bgcolor=#ffc align=left		–	–	–	–	–	–	–	1	–	–	1

Source: World Rugby. Archived ^[3]

Legend
Qualification for the 2017–18 World Sevens Series
No colour	Core team in 2016–17 and re-qualified as a core team for the 2017–18 World Rugby Sevens Series
bgcolor=#fcc	Pink	Relegated as the lowest placed core team at the end of the 2016–17 season
bgcolor=#ffc	Yellow	Not a core team
Qualification for 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens
Already confirmed for 2018 (host country United States and 2013 quarterfinalists)
Qualified as one of the four highest placed eligible teams from the 2016–17 World Rugby Sevens Series not already qualified.[4]

Players

Scoring leaders

+Tries scored
Rank	Player	Tries
align=center	1		align=center	57
align=center	2		align=center	51
align=center	3		align=center	40
align=center	4		align=center	32
align=center	5		align=center	32

+Points scored
Rank	Player	Points
align=center	1		align=center	285
align=center	2		align=center	281
align=center	3		align=center	279
align=center	4		align=center	269
align=center	5		align=center	266

Updated: 22 May 2017

Dream Team

Placings summary

Tallies of top four tournament placings during the 2016–17 series, by team:

Cup
Team	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Fourth	Total <	--	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total -->
	5	3	-	-	8
	2	2	2	1	7
	1	3	1	-	5
	1	1	1	1	4
	1	-	1	1	3
	-	1	1	3	5
	-	-	3	1	4
	-	-	1	2	3
	-	-	-	1	1
Totals	10	10	10	10

Tournaments

In this series, World Rugby abolished the minor trophies of Plate, Bowl and Shield that were previously awarded in the finals play-offs at each tournament. While the winner's Cup was retained as the major trophy, the awarding of gold, silver and bronze medals to players from the three top-placed teams was introduced for this series with the third-placed match now renamed as the bronze-medal match. A Challenge Trophy was established for teams competing in the lower bracket of the finals play-offs at each tournament.^[5] Additionally, the playing time for Cup final matches was reduced from 20 minutes to 14 minutes, in line with all other tournament matches.^[6]

Dubai

See main article: 2016 Dubai Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		26–14		(Bronze)
5th Place		19–12
Challenge Trophy		28–14
13th Place		20–17

Cape Town

See main article: 2016 South Africa Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		19–17		(Bronze)
5th Place		33–21
Challenge Trophy		19–7
13th Place		19–10

Wellington

See main article: 2017 Wellington Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		26–5		(Bronze)
5th Place		17–12
Challenge Trophy		19–17
13th Place		19–12

Sydney

See main article: 2017 Sydney Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		29–14		(Bronze)
5th Place		35–12
Challenge Trophy		26–0
13th Place		10–5

Las Vegas

See main article: 2017 USA Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		19–12		(Bronze)
5th Place		10–7
Challenge Trophy		21–14
13th Place		21–19

Vancouver

See main article: 2017 Canada Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		19–7		(Bronze)
5th Place		17–14
Challenge Trophy		19–12
13th Place		24–19

Hong Kong

See main article: 2017 Hong Kong Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		22–0		(Bronze)
5th Place		10–7
Challenge Trophy		21–19
13th Place		28–21
World Series Qualifier		12–7

Singapore

See main article: 2017 Singapore Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		26–19		(Bronze)
5th Place		17–12
Challenge Trophy		24–12
13th Place		40–19

Paris

See main article: 2017 Paris Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		15–5		(Bronze)
5th Place		24–19
Challenge Trophy		33–12
13th Place		19–10

London

See main article: 2017 London Sevens.

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi-finalists
Cup		12–7		(Bronze)
5th Place		28–17
Challenge Trophy		26–14
13th Place		24–19

See also

• 2016–17 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series

External links

• Official Site

Notes and References

1. Web site: World Rugby. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220104244/http://www.worldrugby.org/text/189809. 2016-12-20.
2. Web site: HSBC Sevens World Series . Worldrugby.org . 2016-05-23 . 2016-05-27.
3. Web site: HSBC Sevens World Series Standings . World Rugby . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170706141319/http://www.worldrugby.org/sevens-series/standings . 6 July 2017 . dmy-all . 3 December 2016 .
4. http://www.worldrugby.org/text/189809 Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 qualification process
5. Web site: 3 October 2016 . Men's and women's sevens winners to strike gold . World Rugby.org . https://web.archive.org/web/20161004064208/http://www.worldrugby.org/sevens-series/news/195249 . 4 October 2016.
6. Web site: Newman . Beth . Big Sevens finals cut to seven minutes . rugby.com.au . https://web.archive.org/web/20170519215923/https://www.rugby.com.au/news/2016/11/19/07/34/world-rugby-law-changes . 19 May 2017 . 19 November 2016.