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Sevens back on its feet ahead of Tokyo

The Australian rugby sevens programs has been helped back to its feet a year out from the Tokyo Olympics.

Charlotte Caslick takes on the French defence during the Sydney Sevens at Bankwest Stadium Picture: Brett Costello
Charlotte Caslick takes on the French defence during the Sydney Sevens at Bankwest Stadium Picture: Brett Costello

The Australian rugby sevens programs, which had been driven to their knees during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been helped back to their feet a year out from the Tokyo Olympics by a one-off funding grant of $2.2m from the Australian Institute of Sport.

The additional grants of $1.4m to the Australian women, the defending Olympic champions, and $800,000 to the men — who were placed fourth on the rankings when the World Series was abandoned this year — will allow Rugby Australia to resurrect preparations for next year’s Olympics that looked to have been jettisoned when the pandemic hit.

“We put about $3m into the women’s team in the lead-up (to the 2016 Rio Olympics) and with this funding we will at least match that amount,” Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie told The Australian.

“This is a significant new commitment to the men’s program, but they deserve it. They are performing well and they are right up there at the top of their game worldwide.”

Both teams were “great examples to young ­people”.

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“It’s good news for rugby, it’s good news for sport,” he said.

“This is the sort of thing that the AIS, which has been very careful with its budget and its costs, has been able to find some savings to invest in sport.”

Scott Bowen, Rugby Australia’s head of performance for the sevens, admitted that without the funding assistance, which takes the overall federal government/AIS contribution to $4.5m, RA would have faced some difficult decisions. “It was going to be a challenge around what we did with both programs,” Bowen said. “Now we can continue moving forward with both.

“We’ve had staff stood down or been on JobKeeper so it will allow us to get back to fully resourcing our programs from the staffing point of view. It also gives us a bit more clarity and opportunity to look at other competitions, particularly in some of the women’s competitions.

Bowen said the funding “allows us again to start looking at opportunities where we need to get increased competition outside of the World ­Series”.

Bowen said he was still working through various scenarios with his counterparts in New Zealand and Fiji sevens, respectively Tony Philip and Simon Raiwalui, who was the Wallabies lineout coach at last year’s World Cup. “We are waiting for any potential bubble that might enable us to play international competition,” he said.

As bubbles go, this one takes some popping. New Zealand is ranked No 1 in the world in both men’s and women’s rugby, while Fiji are the reigning men’s Olympic champions. The Fijian women are ranked seventh in the world, but still are capable of troubling Australia.

If a window can be found for the sevens program, it is likely to be the same as for Test football — October-November, ahead of the opening World Series tournament in Dubai in December.

While the postponement of the Tokyo Games has taken its toll of some sevens veterans — Jesse Parahi was the most conspicuous example, with RA cutting him from the program after a decade on the circuit — the widespread belief is that the extra year should help Australia’s young talent considerably.

Read related topics:Coronavirus

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/rugby-union/sevens-back-on-its-feet-ahead-of-tokyo/news-story/b6c33896fa4a4c3026448b3885a8da99