The 2021 World Rugby Sevens Series was the 22nd annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for national men's rugby sevens teams. The Sevens Series has been run by World Rugby since 1999. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, only two tournaments were played in the 2021 series instead of the usual ten. The number of teams participating was also reduced from sixteen to twelve at the tournaments, with many of the top teams from the previous series not taking part.
The series was won by South Africa who won both tour events on their way to claiming their fourth World Series title.
Teams The twelve national men's teams competing in the 2021 series were:
Core teams qualified from the previous season and not competing in 2021 were: Argentina, Australia, Fiji, France, Japan, New Zealand and Samoa, who did not travel due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. England, Scotland and Wales did not take part, being represented instead by Great Britain.
As a result, five teams from the Challenger Series were invited to both events to complete a 12-team field. Hong Kong, Germany and Chile were in the top four of the 2020 Series, while Jamaica and Mexico were the only North American entrants.
Tour venues The official schedule for the 2021 World Rugby Sevens Series was:
+ 2021 ItineraryLeg StadiumCity DatesWinner Vancouver BC Place Vancouver 18–19 September 2021 Edmonton Commonwealth Stadium Edmonton
On 4 August organisers announced the cancellation of the Hong Kong Sevens for the second year running because of the emerging Covid-19 Delta variant and global travel restrictions.
On 3 September, World Rugby cancelled the Singapore and Cape Town tournaments due to ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and announced that the 2021 Dubai Sevens tournament would no longer be part of the 2021 series but incorporated into the 2021-22 series instead. This reduced the 2021 series to just two events held in Canada.
Standings
The final standings after completion of the two tournaments of the series are shown in the table below.
The points awarded to teams at each tournament, as well as the overall season totals, are shown. Gold indicates the event champions. Silver indicates the event runner-ups. Bronze indicates the event third place finishers.
Official standings for the 2021 series were: + 2021 World Rugby Sevens – Series XXI Pos. Vancouver Edmonton Pointstotal Pointsdifference 1 202040+422 2 1618 34+106 3 1816 34+78 4 1014 24–37 5 1210 22+142 6 146 20+207 412 16+1628 88 16–4 9 64 10–310 23 5–10511 32 5–32512 11 2–456
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:92%;" |- !colspan=2| Legend |- style="line-height:18px; font-size:90%;" |colspan=2 align=center |Event Medalists |- |bgcolor=#FFD700|Gold |Event Champions |- |bgcolor=#C0C0C0|Silver |Event Runner-ups |- |bgcolor=#CD7F32|Bronze |Event Third place finishers |- |- style="line-height:18px; font-size:90%;" |colspan=2 align=center |Qualification for the 2020–21 World Rugby Sevens Series |- |No colour |Originally qualified as a core team for the 2020–21 World Rugby Sevens Series |- |style="background:#ffc;"|Yellow |Invited team |} Source: World Rugby
Players
Scoring leaders
+Tries scored Rank Player Tries 1 Muller du Plessis 13 2 Malacchi Esdale 12 Max McFarland 12 4 Alvin Otieno 11 Siviwe Soyizwapi 11 Updated: 27 September 2021
+Points scored Rank Player Points 1 Ronald Brown 91 2 Muller du Plessis 65 3 Diego Warnken 64 4 Brennig Prevost 62 5 Malacchi Esdale 60 Max McFarland 60 Updated: 27 September 2021
Tournaments
Vancouver
EventWinnerScoreFinalistCup38–5Bronze24–145th Place26–77th Place19–79th Place66–011th Place34–0
Edmonton
EventWinnerScoreFinalistCup24–12Bronze33–145th Place24–19 (a.e.t.)7th Place21–149th Place29–1211th Place28–10
See also 2021 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series Rugby sevens at the 2020 Summer Olympics
Notes
References
External links Official site