As the Saxons have grown over the last few years, so has the sport of 7s. Early indications suggest that given time 7s might just become the growth version of the sport. Even now looking ahead there are early signs that this growth is going to be fighting a battle to find a place sitting comfortably alongside 15s version of the game.
The 7s season for the Saxons is going to start on the 19th April, and even now I know that we are going to struggle to get our best teams to be available because they are going to be in the throes of trying to secure their 15s clubs positions for the end of the season. God forbid that any of our players end up in a team that reaches the promotion playoffs. In the past these have been known to be played in mid-to-late May depending on how bad the winter months are and how many games get rearranged.
With a lot of clubs then starting pre-season in late June / early July this shortens the window of opportunity even further for players to get the chance to play 7s and get appropriate rest in between tournaments. At this stage 7s clubs haven’t been engaged in a proper debate as to how to balance out the two versions of the game, but if it isn’t addressed soon there are going to be some interesting developments.
The signs of these clashes are starting to become more frequent but even as the Saxons we have already had our own challenges when we were still in our infancy when we were asked to disassociate ourselves from Richmond (we were originally called the Richmond Saxons). When we asked Richmond for their support in supporting our nomination to become an affiliated club within Surrey RFU, they declined, but after having discussed this further with their Chairman it transpires that they were concerned that we would be playing too many tournaments inside the 15s season and that was why they weren’t keen to support us. To be fair had we had the conversation prior then I think it is unlikely that they wouldn’t have supported us, but we suffered as a consequence of rumour and perception.
Putting a squad together for Vegas has proved equally challenging, 2 of the potential players we had have been asked by their clubs to withdraw from the trip, a number of other players have managed to get permission such is the nature of their contracts that they aren’t quite as tied into their clubs contractually. But how long is this going to last for, how much longer are clubs going to allow their players to disappear off mid-season to Vegas, Dubai or Hong Kong.
Where is that going to leave 7s clubs, certainly there appears to have been a shift with newer teams paying players, although how they can afford to do this is beyond me. The prize monies available wouldn’t cover some of the figures I have started to hear. Where are these teams raising funds from? Our budget alone excluding any thought of paying players already stands at £50,000. Now we know now, at the beginning of November that we already have £40,000 of that covered and we have a fair idea of where the other £10,000 is going to come from. Is 7s really going to move into the professional era, does rugby really have the money to fund such a move? Now there is no way to police this as there are no control functions in place from the RFU to really govern the sport but even from my limited, the Saxons are never going to be able to compete financially with 7s clubs that are paying or players obligations to their 15s clubs.
But there has been an interesting development, the emergence of the 7s only player. The may be accused of being fair weather players but actually they enjoy the scene better and they enjoy the fact that it is a shorter season and that they aren’t obligated to play every week. At the Saxons we have two such players, and after long debates we managed to convince two of our emerging Saxons not to convert just yet as they still had things that they needed to learn from the 15s side that would impact on their game significantly.
So where does this really leave 7s? The short answer is no one can really say right now. As clubs we just have to keep struggling on hoping that something big is coming our way.
As for the Saxons we will continue to try and provide players with access to the tournaments they are unlikely to ever play in with other teams, not because we play more tournaments but because 7s should be a touring sport, you should look to go overseas and experience different countries and how they treat tournaments. At Howard Hinton the way the players were treated by our hosts was nothing short of phenomenal and actually puts a lot of the bigger UK tournaments to shame. What was also interesting was the fact that they were streaming games live over the internet, which I don’t think any UK tournament currently does. Offering our players the opportunity to travel will always be the bedrock of the Saxons and I for one am really looking forward to what Budapest has to offer.
