Teams Ready For A New SVNS Season At Emirates Dubai Sevens 2024 – Host Of New Stars To Debut

rugbyasia247 Posted On November 28, 2024

11 Views

The Emirates Dubai Sevens has been dominated by the Blitzboks men and Australian women in recent years but the new season has seen so many players and coaches leave the game post-Paris Olympics 2024. The South African men will be looking for a sixth straight tournament win in the UAE, while the Australian women are chasing a 5th win on the bounce at the Emirates Stadium.

Feature Photo – The 12 women’s and 12 men’s rugby sevens captains pose with the HSBC SVNS trophy ahead of round one of the new series, the Emirates Dubai Sevens on 30 November – 1 December. (Photo: Alex Ho/World Rugby)

World Rugby Chief Executive Alan Gilpin said: “We can’t wait for HSBC SVNS 2025 to start and for these incredible athletes to showcase their awesome skills at seven iconic destinations around the world.

Dubai has been a mainstay on the global rugby sevens circuit since 1999 and will no doubt provide the perfect lift-off for what promises to be an exciting campaign with seasoned Olympians inspiring audiences around the globe and new stars hoping to make their mark.”

Blitzboks – Defending Emirates Dubai Sevens Champions in The Desert

Photo by Alex Ho / World Rugby)

The South African men’s side, like so many this season, has a lot of new faces as many of the old guard across the sport have hung up their boots, both in the players and coaching roles.

Tristan Leyds is appearing for the first time at the Emirates Dubai Sevens this year and he said, “I am super excited and ready to make the most of my first tournament here. We have a good record here, but that was not part of the discussions up to this point, the guys were rather more focused on executing the things we worked on at training over the past couple of weeks. There is good clarity on what we want to do, and we are ready to go out and express ourselves.”

Selvyn Davids is injured and Leyds will occupy the playmaker role for the side. The side also is without Ronald Brown, who picked up a hamstring strain just before the tournament with Shaun Williams stepping into the role of sweeper. Blitzbok captain Selvyn Davids and utility forward Tiaan Pretorius, will miss at least the first two tournaments – in Dubai and Cape Town. It was also confirmed that Rosko Specman has stepped away from the sevens programme, while Justin Geduld has moved into the DHL Stormers set-up.

Leyds added, “I am confident in my abilities and how to express myself in the team structure and having not played here before, makes it an exciting prospect to go out and perform. I had to work hard on my game since I joined last year and I feel I am coming to grips with it now. There was criticism on my defence, but I have worked very hard to improve that. I am confident in that area now and will not only be a number in the defensive line.”

Impi Visser will run out for his 40th tournament in Dubai, while Blitzbok head coach Philip Snyman is now in the job permanently and appointed until the end of the next Olympic Games cycle in 2028.

Visser said: “Dubai feels like a second home for us, with many South African fans here. Maybe it’s the excitement of a new season starting but we always seem to jump the gun and be fast starters in Dubai. Hopefully, we can do that again this weekend and continue it throughout the season.

We want to build consistency and it starts this weekend in Dubai for us. We’re excited to get going, it’s always a really great atmosphere in Dubai with everyone dressed up. We have a very tough pool so we’re going to have to get stuck in and just give it everything in every game.”

The SA squad includes Donovan Don, David Brits and Tristan Leyds as first-timers at the Emirates Dubai 7s 2024.

Snyman added “We have a good core of senior players and some exciting youngsters, who always bring energy to a group, so I am happy with this group. Part of the plan is to introduce new players during the season in order to build depth, something the Springboks are getting right at the moment, and we want to copy that principle.”

Men's Pools - Dubai 7s 2024

Men’s Olympic champions France (without World Rugby’s poster boy and undeniable talent Antoine Dupont) will be looking to retain their SVNS Champions crown after they upset SVNS league winners Argentina to claim the inaugural men’s title in 2024.

Ireland, Fiji and New Zealand will all be in the mix, but they also see changes to the squads with NZ in particular saying goodbye to some legends of the game.

Australia have lost playmaker Dietrich Roach for the whole season due to injury while long-serving Head Coach John Manenti has been replaced by NZ Sevens Assistant Coach Liam Barry. Manenti resigned after Paris 2024 and has a new role in the MLR.

The USA has lost the services of Head Coach Mike Friday and legend Perry Baker, and the men’s side will be co-captained by Faitala Talapusi and Aaron Cummins as the side is now coached by former Japan Men’s Head Coach Simon Amor.

Australia Women – Queens of the Desert in Dubai

Photo by Alex Ho / World Rugby)

There has been plenty of change within the squad of the four-time consecutive Emirates Dubai Sevens champions, the Australia women, as they also saw a host of stars retire from the game following a heartbreaking 2024 Olympics in which they narrowly missed out on a medal.

As Australia look to make it a 5th straight win at the Emirates Stadium in 2024, they do so armed with the newly crowned Women’s Sevens Player of the Year Maddison Levi, as well as a new captain as stalwart and talisman Charlotte Caslick has stepped away from the captaincy this season and the reigns have been handed to Isabella Nasser. Australia is still without players such as Maddie Ashby and Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea who continue to recover from injuries.

It was also announced a couple of days before the weekend’s action that Bridget Clark was also injured and Piper Simons had been called in to make her debut in Dubai.

Australia women’s captain Nasser said: “We’re looking forward to getting back out there and we always love playing here in Dubai in the heat. We have lots of new faces on the team and we are really looking forward to the debutants showing the world what they can do. We’re really looking forward to showing everyone what we’ve been working on.

I feel really honoured to take on the captaincy role this year and I’m excited for the season. Obviously Charlotte (Caslick) is such an important part of the team, she’s a legend of the game with so many incredible achievements so I’m really looking forward to having her in the team and teaching me her way.”

The New Zealand women will be looking to end their rival’s rout in Dubai as they look to build on their second successive Olympic title in Paris and will be aiming to reclaim the SVNS Champions title they lost to Australia in 2024.

The NZ women also have said goodbye to some real legends of sevens rugby, while the French, USA, and Canada will be likely their other strongest challengers this season.

New Zealand women’s captain Sarah Hirini, who made the amazing comeback from injury to lift gold in Paris, said: “We’re really excited to get going. Coming off a pretty successful Olympic campaign and getting back into it with a new bunch of girls and some debutants it’s been a really cool last couple of months’ build-up.

Looking around there are a lot of new faces as we’re starting a new cycle and that’s really exciting. We play Canada in our last pool match which is a repeat of the Olympic gold medal match so that will be hugely exciting. I love playing in Dubai, it’s one of my favourite tournaments I’ve ever played in, it’s what sevens is all about, everyone having a good time and always pulls in a big crowd so it’s nice to be back here,” added NZ Captain Hirini.

NZ Women are without Stacey Waaka and World Rugby 7s Player of the Year 2024 Nominee Michaela Blyde in Dubai.

Women's Pools - Dubai 7s 2024

Canada, who were silver medalists in Paris, will only have four Olympians playing the opening two tournaments of the SVNS season.

North American neighbours and bronze Olympic medalists, the USA, also saw a handful of core players retire. Sammy Sullivan and Spiff Sedrick are recovering from off-season surgery and Ilona Maher is unavailable in Dubai. The USA women’s side will have six debutantes in Dubai with Kayla Canett and Alena Olsen serving as co-captains.

The full schedule of matches for the Emirates Dubai 7s 2024 can be seen here.