Great Britain males’s and girls’s groups will take part within the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series subsequent season.
The Rugby Football Union, Scottish Rugby and Welsh Rugby Union have confirmed a joint method for the enterprise.
The transfer has been ratified and mandated by World Rugby, aligning the governing our bodies’ future path of sevens and connection to its Olympic standing.
It implies that Great Britain shall be a consultant group within the World Series for women and men, changing England, Scotland and Wales within the males’s competitors and England within the girls’s, though every union will retain particular person Commonwealth Games and Rugby World Cup standing, relying on qualification.
The respective unions and World Rugby are in discussions concerning additional enjoying alternatives for the England, Scotland and Wales groups.
Great Britain’s males gained silver on the 2016 Rio Olympics and have been fourth in Tokyo final 12 months, whereas GB girls completed fourth on each of these events.
Prospects for the lads’s and girls’s GB squads appeared bleak a 12 months earlier than Tokyo, although, amid important cuts made to British sevens programmes.
Although funding was then obtained forward of the Olympics by way of a industrial partnership struck between the RFU, Scottish Rugby, WRU and The National Lottery promotional fund, post-Tokyo uncertainty remained.
An announcement launched by the RFU mentioned coaches and enjoying squads can be confirmed forward of the World Series males’s opener in Hong Kong in November and girls’s launch in Dubai the next month.
The assertion added: “The mandating of Olympic teams from the 2023/24 season means all three unions acknowledge the importance of transferring to GB from the forthcoming campaign (2022/23) to embrace this new era with GB as the representative team on the World Series moving forward.”
RFU efficiency director Conor O’Shea mentioned: “This is a seminal day for sevens.
“It is the right way forward, giving Team GB a real opportunity to go to the Olympic Games with the right preparation, to compete on a level playing field with other sevens programmes and most importantly, enables us all to give certainty to staff and players as to the future of the programme.
“We will be working hard now to finalise the structures to support GB so we are ready to start the 2023 World Rugby Sevens Series with a bang, moving towards Paris 2024 and beyond.”
Scottish Rugby’s excessive efficiency director Jim Mallinder added: “We are acutely aware of Scotland’s heritage and passion for sevens rugby. As such, we remain fully committed to a Scotland sevens programme to develop our players and coaches.
“The move to a GB sevens team on the World Series will give Scottish players, both men and women, a unique opportunity to represent and compete on the largest global stage through the World Series and Olympic Games.”
And WRU efficiency director Nigel Walker mentioned: “We will maintain male and female sevens programmes in Wales to develop players and coaches and make sure there is a pipeline of talent culminating in the opportunity to push for GB selection, and ultimately compete at an Olympics.”
Source: www.impartial.co.uk