Since 2016, when rugby sevens was admitted to the Olympics, the All Blacks Sevens have finished fifth (Rio), and second (Tokyo) before being knocked out in the quarter-finals in Paris.
It’s a record that sits uncomfortably alongside the men’s huge achievements in the World Rugby Sevens Series (won a record 14 times), gold medals in the Commonwealth Games (won five of the seven golds plus one silver), and the Sevens Rugby World Cup (won three of the eight World Cups, equal with Fiji).
All that leads pundits to confidently predict in every Olympic cycle that the sevens team will be in the medals – but should we really have been surprised at their exit at the hands of South Africa?
Tone Ng Shiu is consoled by Brady Rush after losing to South Africa. Photo / Photosport
First, anyone who watched the pool match between the two, won by New Zealand, cannot fail to have noticed that the referee blitzed the BlitzBoks with penalties to the extent they barely had the ball. Possession is vital in this truncated version of the game.
Second, New Zealand’s dominance in sevens has been successfully challenged so many times now that the word dominance is non-applicable these days. New Zealand’s 14 world series titles include eight of the first nine but only six of the last 16, and only two in the last 10 years. South Africa have won three of the last eight.
Third, there is the question of pace. With the exception of Moses Leo, New Zealand looked a little short of it. They also had to contend with a bravura performance from South African captain Selvyn Davids – scored one, made one and saved at least two with last-ditch tackling.
It was the try towards the end of the first half that decided the match. Somehow the brilliant Andrew Knewstubb didn’t realise the line was open in front of him after making a bust. He offloaded to Leroy Carter – who spilled the ball when he copped a South African tackle at the same instant. Davids, about 85m from the line, kicked ahead with the resulting possession – outpacing 33-year-old New Zealand skipper Dylan Collier before regathering and feeding Tristan Leyds for the crucial try.
It was a 14-point score. Tragically, Knewstubb’s much-publicised comeback from career-threatening knee injuries effectively ended on that play. Ironically, it was Leyds’ tackle Knewstubb clattered through but, with the line at his mercy, he surrendered to that innate instinct to pass before the tackle came.
Eighty-five metres and a few seconds later, Leyds scored at the other end. Two bodies flung themselves at Davids as he transferred to Leyds for the touchdown – Collier, who characteristically never gave up the chase, and the grizzled 36-year-old warrior Scott Curry. Both are over 1.90m and about 100kg; both have won just about every sevens honour known to man.
However, sevens is a balance between possession, speed, ball skills, and the need for bigger players to secure possession from set pieces and to produce offloads – telling in sevens’ wide-open spaces. Curry and Collier have been rightly decorated for their astonishing workrate, resilience and offloading but maybe it’s here a rethink is needed.
One of the images from the match against South Africa was Davids scoring the first try – winding up from some way from the line as Curry desperately tried to cover about 40m to cut him down. He just missed, Knewstubb grabbed air and South Africa were on their way. Davids also ran down New Zealand’s Fehi Fineanganofo in another show of superiority in speed.
There will always be a place for power players in sevens (remember Jonah Lomu in 2001?) and pace in itself is no guarantee of success – the lightning Rieko Ioane was part of the 2016 Olympic team that came fifth. However, now the selection pendulum may swing a little more towards finding speed players and/or power players with plentiful pace.
If that is even possible... let’s not forget that sevens and XVs rugby are often separate animals as far as New Zealand Rugby (NZR) is concerned. The fence between the All Blacks and the sevens isn’t much jumped these days, though offload machine Sonny Bill Williams and Ioane did so in 2016 – and just imagine players like Ardie Savea, Damian McKenzie and Beauden Barrett in sevens.
The players have to want to make the switch and need extended time in the gruelling sevens circuit – and that is where internal politics can play a role. Savea was in the 2016 sevens squad for the Olympics until he pulled out; selection as an All Black followed shortly, suspiciously, afterwards.
So finding the right players is easier said than done and, though things are a little better now, it was especially tough when New Zealand’s most successful sevens coach, Sir Gordon Tietjens, ruled the roost. “Titch” had to select a world-class sevens team with many world-class players denied him, winning world crowns time after time when about 200 first-choice rugby players were fenced off by the then NZR priority system.
Better rugby brains than this column’s may have the answer but one thing is clear – if New Zealand wants Olympic Sevens golds, things need to change.
