Fiji Men and NZ Women Win The 2025 Singapore SVNS – NZ Women and Argentina Men Crowned League Champions

The Black Ferns 7s New Zealand women and Argentina men retained the HSBC SVNS League titles and were confirmed as HSBC SVNS 2025 League Winners on the opening day in Singapore after reaching the semi-finals. The NZ women also won the Cup in Singapore beating Australia, while Fiji won the Men’s Cup defeating Kenya.

Feature Photo Credit – World Rugby / Zach Franzen

Kenya reached their first semi-final and final on the HSBC SVNS Series in seven years in Singapore –  the Shujaa hadn’t made the final four since the Hong Kong Sevens in 2018 but fell just short in the Men’s Cup final against Fiji. Their previous only other title was in Singapore in 2016.

A second half hattrick of tries with a brace from Viwa Naduvalo and one from Rauto Vakadranu saw Fiji overturn a Kenyan lead and a 21-12 – the HSBC Player of the Final was Fijian Viwa Naduvalo. Fiji’s Tira Wilag Pattersoni said: “The Kenyan team was coming very hard, they are a good side and very physical. It was so tough.”

For the women, first-half tries from Michaela Brake and Risi Pouri-Lane for NZ before a Maddison Levi response before the break was followed by second-half tries from Jazmin Felix-Hotham, Kelsey Teneti and a second for Brake saw New Zealand run out 31-7 winners.

NZ Captain Sarah Hirini said she was “stoked for this group. Everyone knows when you win the title and win the tournament at the same time it’s an even greater feeling….We all love what we do. We know how grateful we are to be in this position.”

Photo Credit- World Rugby – NZ Women’s Captain Sarah Hirini – Singapore SVNS 2025

Maddison Levi became only the 4th woman to pass 200 tries over the weekend. At 22 years old, she became the fastest woman to surpass 200 tries, and he has passed Charlotte Caslick as Australia’s top try scorer in finals with 15!

Argentina’s men won bronze in Singapore following a 33-14 victory over Spain, and the Canada women won bronze with a 21-5 defeat of France.

NZ Women and Argentina Men – 2025 SVNS League Champions

NZ vice-captain Risi Pouri-Lane, who was the player in the women’s final said: “There’s definitely an element of relief but in a way that we’re so hard on ourselves to perform and to come out here in every tournament and put on a show for everybody and ourselves. Everyone here, we work hard to be in that kind of moment so it is relief but also just an overwhelming sense of joy knowing that the whole squad that’s behind us that put us in a position to be here in those moments.

We’re our harshest critics. We always strive for more, we always want more, and we always think that we haven’t actually reached our potential. There’s pros and cons to that because we’re so hard on ourselves but the pros to that is we’re always striving for greatness.”

New Zealand women and Argentina men 2025 HSBC SVNS League Winners. Singapore National Stadium on April 6, 2025 in Singapore. (Photo by Zach Franzen / World Rugby)

Argentina player Tobias Wade commented on the league title: “It’s pretty awesome. The team after the Olympics maintained completely the same guys so we tried to put in the effort to train hard and try to repeat what we did last year. We worked really hard to do this again. The league is awesome, it’s a great prize for us because it is the whole year for us being competitive. It’s very important. Tomorrow we are playing semi-finals so we have to get our body recovered.”

The final SVNS League standings can be seen here for the women and men.

Asian Contenders – Japan and China Women

For the Asian sides, Japan Sakura 7s finished 5th in Singapore – beating Asian rivals China 26-12 in the 5th place final, and they secured 5th in the League.

The Chinese finished 10th overall and head to LA for the relegation battle along with Brazil, Ireland and Spain as well as the 4 teams that will top the final Challenger leg in Krakow in April (Which could include Thailand). The final round of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger takes place in Krakow on 11-12 April 2025.

Japanese Women’s Head Coach Yuka Kanematsu has had an excellent debut season and told us why she feels they have had a good SVNS Series:  “For each and every tournament we set a goal or a theme for each leg. We want to achieve that every tournament even when we change squad members and we together try and achieve our goals and I think we have done well so far.

Photo Credit – World Rugby – Japanese Women’s Head Coach Yuka Kanematsu – Singapore SVNS 2025

In Hong Kong, the theme was pressure. Even though I felt we had played well this season, we started to feel the pressure before the leg at Kai Tak Stadium because we are in a position to try and achieve a medal so we wanted to take the pressure off ourselves and put the pressure on our opponents.”

China Women’s 7s Head Coach Lu Zhuan told us “The Singapore format is tough and to win the first game was important to reach at least the top 8, so we really wanted to win that and look forward to the next game which has less pressure. It’s an opportunity for us to learn and grow as a group in abilities and confidence as we have a young group. For this season, the level up from Challenger is a big step and we have tried to learn as we have played and we have given an opportunity to younger players on the SVNS Series which was one of our goals.”

Photo Credit – World Rugby – China Women’s 7s Head Coach Lu Zhuan – Singapore SVNS 2025

Results

• Pools – China 19-5 Brazil 
• Pools – Japan 24-12 Spain
• Pools – China 0-38 NZ
• Pools – Japan 5-43 Australia
• 5th place SF – Japan 21-12 GB
• 5th place SF – China 27-0 Fiji
• 5th Place Final – Japan 26-12 China

All of the Singapore SVNS 2025 results can be seen here.

Blitzboks Head To LA in top-8 But Need to be More Consistent

Blitzboks Men finished 9th at Singapore SVNS 2025

The South African Blitzboks had two disappointing legs in Asia, and finished in 9th place in Singapore, beating Australia 26-7 which meant a fourth-place finish in the league overall. Springbok Sevens team head coach Philip Snyman blamed the lack of consistency. They did win 3 of 4 matches in the tough format at the Singapore National Stadium, completing Sunday with only 9 players (2 red-card suspensions).

Snyman said, “That first game against GB really put us on the back foot, first with the early red card and then playing with only five players later on after a yellow card. We need to address our discipline as it wasn’t up to standard with too many cards and too many penalties. I believe in this squad and the programme, but we need to be more consistent, which is why we’re not among the top three. We still made a massive step up from last season though.

The top eight teams now set their sights on the Grand Finale in Los Angeles which is played from 3-4 May 2025 to wrap up the season.

A special mention to all of the Asian match officials involved this weekend in Singapore, including HKCR Sunny Lee who was the match referee for the Women’s Cup Final between NZ and Australia.

Photo Credit – Alex Ho / World Rugby – HKCR Sunny Lee was the Singapore SVNS Women’s Final Match Referee

HSBC SVNS 2025 News

• ChildFund Celebrates a Decade of Impact Through ‘Pass It Back’ & Launches New Mascot Rally.
• DJ Forbes – This Sport I Love Is Really Special.
• HSBC Global Ambassadors Abby Gustaitis and Alicia Lucas Explain Why Kai Tak Stadium and Rugby Sevens Are So Special.
• Third Leg Of HSBC World Rugby Sevens Challenger 2025 – Krakow.