BC Place will host the fourth round of the HSBC SVNS Series from Friday to Sunday as the tournament marks a decade in Vancouver.
Captains of the world’s top 12 men’s and women’s teams gathered on the shores of Sunset Beach on Tuesday afternoon in Downtown Vancouver ahead of the three-day event.
Teams were met with a traditional welcome from Mike Billy Sr, hereditary chief from Squamish Nation who shared two of their canoes. Billy Sr and the team at Canoe Cultures are dedicated to the advancement of Indigenous arts and the preservation of the heritage art of the canoe. The captain’s discovered how the canoes symbolise local Indigenous culture, communicating identity, place and belonging.
Heading into the weekend, Canada Women will be returning to home soil for the first time since making history last summer by winning silver at the Paris 2024 Olympics and will be in Pool A. Here they will face joint table leaders and Perth winners, Australia alongside Brazil and Spain.
One player to watch will be three-time Canada Women Olympian, Charity Williams who sits at 99 career SVNS tries to date. Williams will be hoping to go a step further, securing an impressive milestone of 100 tries and 500 points on her homecoming back to Vancouver.
Women’s Olympic champions New Zealand lead the current standings following a valiant SVNS run most recently with victory in Cape Town and two silvers scooped in Perth and Dubai. Next up they will face China, Ireland and USA in Pool B. Pool C sees Fiji, France, Great Britain and Japan go head-to-head at BC Place.
It is extremely tight at the top of the men’s standings with Fiji, Argentina and Spain all level on 48 points at the top of the table.
Following gold in Perth and bronze in Dubai, Argentina will be hoping to continue their winning streak as they head into battle in pool A along with rivals France, Great Britain and Kenya.
Third round hosts, Australia were drawn in men’s pool B together with Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa. Pool C has two of the three joint table winners so far, Fiji and Spain who will be up against Uruguay and USA as they compete for the title.
The HSBC SVNS action kicks off at 11.18am local time on Friday with pool matches. The pool phase continues from 10.30am on Saturday heading into the quarters in the afternoon. All the action rounds-off at Sunday’s finals day which begins at 10.50am with the men’s and women’s finals at 5.05pm and 5.41pm respectively.
Building on Perth, the women's final will once again be the tournament's grand finale, taking center stage on Sunday evening and closing out HSBC SVNS Vancouver in style.
Canada women’s captain Piper Logan said: “We’re feeling super confident coming off a fourth place finish in Perth and we’ve had a really good two weeks of training.
“We love Vancouver SVNS, it’s our favourite tournament of the year. It’s really important to help continue to grow the game in Canada especially with our silver medal in Paris. There’s been a lot of traction with rugby here, so to have a home competition and have people come and see us play is really important.
“We love the crowd, we love the friends and family support in Vancouver – they always give us good energy, so we’re excited!”.
Argentina men’s captain, Santiago Mare said: “In Perth we had a good tournament but there’s also things to improve. Since then, we have focussed on continuing to improve in the game and making winning a consequence of doing things right. That is our goal and if it leads us to win, we will be happy!
“We are very happy to be back in Vancouver, it’s a city that we really like and we have beautiful memories from the past years playing here. We are expecting a great atmosphere and know everyone will enjoy the tournament.”
Australia women’s captain Isabella Nasser commented on the teams hopes to keep their winning streak from Perth and a look ahead to whats in store this weekend. “We always take it game by game, so we’ve got to get through our pool first and hopefully head into the finals on Sunday. Vancouver is always really exciting, the enclosed stadium makes it different and the synthetic grass makes it a really fast and exciting game.
“If you want to see fun, exciting rugby with awesome energy and crowd and lots of competition, then you should be there!”
This year’s Vancouver SVNS festival promises to be bigger than ever as the Canadian leg of the series celebrates its 10 year anniversary. Alongside the epic rugby sevens action, featuring the world’s best 12 men’s and women’s teams packed with Olympic stars, fans in the stands can enjoy global food offerings, live bands, interactive activities including a snowball obstacle course and a first for the SVNS Series, a competitive axe throwing competition from the captains!
Outside of BC Place, there will also be seven rugby-themed light installations set up in iconic spots around downtown Vancouver all weekend following on from the success of a similar fan-favourite activation when Taylor Swift was in town.
Blitzboks’ Pool B fixtures (SA times)
Friday
10.02pm v New Zealand
Saturday
3.29am v Ireland
9.14am v Australia
Springbok Sevens squad for Vancouver
#2 Ryan Oosthuizen – 52 tournaments, 225 points (45 tries)
#3 Impi Visser (co-captain) – 42 tournaments, 215 points (43 tries)
#5 Ricardo Duarttee – 15 tournaments, 248 points (19 tries, 75 conversions, 1 penalty)
#7 Ronald Brown – 18 tournaments, 394 points (40 tries, 97 conversions)
#8 Selvyn Davids (co-captain) – 38 tournaments, 701 points (92 tries, 119 conversions, 1 penalty)
#11 Siviwe Soyizwapi – 56 tournaments, 760 points (152 tries)
#12 Shilton van Wyk – 23 tournaments, 210 points (42 tries)
#14 Quewin Nortje – 9 tournaments, 125 points (25 tries)
#15 Donavan Don – 6 tournaments, 45 points (9 tries)
#16 Sebastiaan Jobb – 2 tournaments, 10 points (2 tries)
#19 David Brits – 6 tournaments, 40 points (8 tries)
#21 Zander Reynders – 2 tournaments, 0 points
#24 Tristan Leyds – 7 tournaments, 106 points (14 tries, 18 conversions)
Comments