GB Sevens

It was just a simple two-on-one. A try now, with the clock in the red, and Great Britain’s core status on the 2025 SVNS series would be secure. But, one misplaced pass later, and their golden chance was gone. Had GB just fumbled their place at sevens’ top table, or even, the future of their programme? 

There weren’t many people in the Hong Kong Stadium that believed England stood a chance against the Fijians in 2002. One of the dominant forces of sevens, and with excellence in every position, the side led by the iconic Waisale Serevi were the clear favourites as they lined up against a side yet to win a World Series tournament crown. 

This England side, however, was not short on talent. With Simon Amor wearing the armband, he was joined by league convert Henry Paul, young Gloucester flyer James Simpson-Daniel, soon to be 2003 World Cup winner Josh Lewsey and future World Series all-time leading points-scorer Ben Gollings, and after a run to the final that had seen them take down Argentina, Samoa and Wales, now came their greatest ask. 

Fiji were the first to strike, but it was England who led at the break, a seventy-metre sprint from Simpson-Daniel taking them 14-10 ahead. His second would come soon after half time, capitalising on a hack through from Paul, and Gollings would add another as the tide began to turn England’s way in the wet conditions. A slip from a Fijian defender allowed Simpson-Daniel to complete his hat-trick, and England were the 2002 Hong Kong champions, defeating the favoured Fijians 33-20. 

If becoming the first northern hemisphere champions of Hong Kong in over two decades wasn’t achievement enough, going back-to-back in 2003, with a pulsating 22-17 victory over the hegemonic, six-series-in-a-row New Zealand Sevens side, was an even greater victory than the first. Going three from three, beating Argentina 22-12 in 2004, was beyond England’s wildest dreams. 

While they never won the World Series title outright during their early 2000s pomp, England’s place as one of the powers of rugby sevens was undeniable, boasting two sevens World Players of the Year’s in Simon Amor (2002) and Ollie Phillips (2006). The 2010s brought less cup success, but the talent was still there, players like Tom Mitchell, James Rodwell and Dan Norton keeping England as a sevens force, and they were the spine of a Great Britain side that would come so close, yet so far in a heavy defeat to Fiji in the gold medal match at Rio 2016.

For today’s Great Britain, it’s a different story, the biggest change being that they are competing on the series as GB – England, Scotland and Wales combined their programmes amid funding cuts, competing as one since 2023. Another big difference is that, on the final weekend of the newly reformed SVNS series, rather than competing at the top of the table, they were focusing on their survival.  

In a season of some highs, but many lows, GB faced Ireland in the semi-final in Singapore, and there couldn’t have been much more on the line. A win for Ireland would keep them in with a chance of snatching the league title from the clutches of Argentina, the frontrunners all season long. Meanwhile for Great Britain, far more ominously, they were playing for their future on the series. If they lost, relegation would be a real possibility; instead of eight tournaments against the might of New Zealand, Fiji and Argentina, next season would consist of just three tournaments on the Challenger series, facing the likes of Papua New Guinea, Uganda and Mexico. 

But more than the weight of history and expectation on GB’s shoulders was the visceral concern over the players’ livelihoods. What their sevens programme, already reduced from full-time to a camp-based model thanks to the pandemic, would look like outside of the circuit, if it existed at all, was an elephant in the room. 

All that was in the balance in Singapore as GB kicked the ball deep into Irish territory, and it was brought into sharp focus as they found themselves scrambling to defend their own line thirty seconds later. But after a nervy game, with both sides weighed down by the enormity of the result, the score was all square at 12-12 with two minutes to go. 

As the clock went into the red, GB had an attacking scrum on Ireland’s ten-metre line. A late inside ball for Harry Glover got them a half-break up to the 22 and they shift it right, finding another half-break to edge even closer. Ross McCann acts as scrum half, and with Alex Davies and Charlton Kerr outside him, there’s an easy two-on-one. The ball goes to Davies, but he fires a simple five metre pass high above Kerr’s head, and the ball is juggled, almost regathered, but dropped, with the try-line begging. Singapore held its breath – GB might have just lost their place on the series. 

Instead of safety, the game went down to golden point, and as Billy Dardis slotted a straightforward penalty for an Ireland victory, the agonising wait would go on. “It was a fun weekend that – we like to do things the more difficult way,” jokes Great Britain captain Robbie Fergusson, looking back on what was, eventually, a successful weekend in Singapore. Luckily, destiny remained in their hands, and with a second shot at safety in the bronze final, they refused to let their chance slip, beating Australia 26-5, including an incredible 70-metre effort from their skipper. That win finally assured their core status for 2025 alongside the GB women, who had won their own tussle for eighth spot with Brazil, and also qualified them for the season-concluding Grand Final in Madrid. “I think we’ve probably exceeded expectations by making this top eight,” continues Robbie. “After tournaments one and two [finishing tenth in Dubai and ninth in Cape Town], the reality was we were going to be in that bottom four. But in terms of the quality in the group, I think we’ve still got a lot more in us, that’s down to training time together, pitch sessions. As the season’s progressed, I’d say we’re probably one of the teams that have grown the most as a whole.” After a best finish of seventh in the first four tournaments, GB reached the final in Los Angeles, falling to a 21-0 defeat to France, before adding their bronze medal in Singapore.

“They sent me for a chest x-ray that showed a thirteen -centimetre tumour in my chest, and a second tumour in my neck which was compressing my windpipe.” 

With momentum in their favour, it’s good timing for Great Britain who, as Rugby Journal goes to print, will be preparing for their crucial three-day repechage event in Monaco, their final chance at 2024 Olympic qualification. The women have already qualified thanks to their gold medal at the European Games in June, but the men will be competing with the likes of South Africa, Spain and Canada with one final place in Paris up for grabs. “We’re beginning to understand each other better as a group,” says Robbie, “there’s no substitute for time spent together on the pitch.”

Robbie is one of the more experienced members of the GB squad, reaching his fiftieth tournament cap in Madrid having first joined the world of sevens in 2017 with Scotland, after meeting head coach John Dalziel during his time at London Scottish. Robbie was on loan there from Glasgow Warriors, after his career had been interrupted by a cancer diagnosis when he was just twenty years old. 

“I’d been gradually feeling worse, but it was post-Christmas, I thought I was just unfit,” he recalls. “I was still feeling the same come February. I got on the bus for a game for Ayr against Gala, and all the old boys told me I was looking terrible – I was pale, washed out, losing weight, I couldn’t figure it out. I went through the warm-up that day and I was sick, so I said to the coach, ‘I can’t play’.

“I’d been in and out of my GP thinking I had a chest infection, and I went back and said, ‘something’s not right’. They sent me for a chest x-ray that ended up showing a thirteen-centimetre tumour in my chest and a second tumour in my neck which was compressing my windpipe.”

Things spiralled from there for Robbie, and after a biopsy he found out it was Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a rare cancer that spreads through the lymphatic system. “They said, ‘it’s an aggressive treatment, we’ll take six months of your life, but it’ll give you your life back.’”

Treatment involved six-hour sessions hooked to an infusion pump every other week for a period of six months, pumping his body with cancer-fighting drugs. To his delight, four months into his treatment, he was told his tumours were retreating.

Seven months after diagnosis and Robbie was back on the pitch for Ayr to thunderous applause, but while his illness is a significant chapter of his life, he refuses to let it define him. “Initially I couldn’t accept it,” he says. “Whether it’s a sporting personality or my personality, I refused to lay down. I remember after my first chemo session, the morning after I got up and went straight to the gym and tried to do a brutal session to prove to myself I could – I ended up fainting and being sick. 

“But I wouldn’t be here doing what I’m doing if it hadn’t happened to me,” he says. “I learned loads from it – it gives you a new appreciation for life, it makes you realise you’re not entitled to things. I think it’s good to sell the positive story to the young people it affects, that you can have a life after. I used to hate speaking about it, but the number of times I have and I’ve got a DM [direct message, from another cancer sufferer], if you can make a positive impact then that’s great.”

Robbie had been determined to make it back to playing for Glasgow, but after a few appearances while players were away at the 2015 World Cup, it was clear things weren’t working out. That was when he headed to London Scottish, John Dalziel joining the season after.

“John and I worked really well together and he asked if I’d be interested in trying some sevens – this was off the back of Rio in 2016, the boys were flying, and sevens was really on the rise. Sevens was never the big dream growing up, I don’t think it was in the eyeline, but it became an interesting option. I’m still here, seven, eight years later.”

Things have changed since Robbie first stepped into the sevens game; what was once three distinct professional set-ups in Scotland, Wales and England is now a combined effort competing as Great Britain in a part-time programme. “Scotland was full-time, at the time even London Scottish was full-time, so I’d been in professional sport in a full-time environment since 2015,” says Robbie. “Then obviously covid hit, and we came back to Great Britain, and because we were all around the UK it was a camp-based model. GB has stayed since then – we’ve never been able to have a permanent base or a set location, and salaries from pre-covid have incrementally gone down. Unions are starting to step away from sevens, you can probably say that. It should become more of an Olympic-funded programme, but again that’s hard because rugby is seen as a developed sport. 

“That’s where we currently find ourselves, in between a rock and a hard place,” muses Robbie. “Where does sevens sit, and what does a long-term model look like to try and grow this game and keep it going?

“We find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. Where does sevens sit, and what does a long-term model look like to try and grow this game and keep it going?”

“It’s not been easy from a sporting point of view,” he continues. “You can’t be as supported, you’re not seeing the physios, the S&Cs, you’re not having chats with the coaches every single day. Instead, you’re running by yourself at your local park with a GPS unit on. You have the mental demons – are you pushing yourself, do I need to do this today? It would make life a lot simpler to be in a full-time environment.

“But the adversity motivates us,” he adds. “Everyone loves an underdog and its easy being the underdog. It motives us 100 per cent, but there’s a big belief in the group that we’ve got the ability to beat anyone on our day.”

As Great Britain comes to terms with what it’s future looks like, one of the people at the heart of shaping its course is Joe Lydon, a well-known face of the sport in these parts. Joe was one of the coaches who helped build the England Sevens programme from scratch in the early 2000s and was coach during their three-peat in Hong Kong. Since then, he’s traversed various development and talent-identification roles across rugby union, bouncing in and out of sevens over the years, but following a partnership between GB Sevens and his leadership development company, Performance 3, he is now back at the helm overseeing the day-to-day operations and performance management of the programme.

In its simplest form, Joe’s role is as the central piece of the GB jigsaw, coordinating between the three unions that make up Great Britain. “GB is not a union itself, we sit across the three unions,” explains Joe. “We are working with the GB Executive Committee, that was set up before Rio and it’s that same committee that has authority and governance across the GB programme. Currently in both budget and management, the responsibility and accountability still sits with the three unions, and that’s delegated down from chief executive to performance managers, into the pathway managers and with myself.

“Our job has been to evaluate where we’ve been over the last six months and where we can go to – I think only now we’re at the point where we can start implementing some improvements.”

For Joe, a coach who specialises in performance pathways, sevens is recognised as an important cog in the rugby union ecosystem. “Sevens is rugby under a magnifying glass,” he says. “You can have a whole season in one weekend, as we did in Singapore, with all the highs and lows that come with it – victory, loss, elation, injury, development, reflection. Everything is condensed and intensified in sevens.

“I think this season, the series has been the most competitive it’s ever been. The intensity, the quality, the ability – I’m still convinced it’s one of the best ways to accelerate the development of a player and a coach.”

Sevens has long been a place where fifteens players have earned their stripes, from Jonah Lomu in the 1990s up to Kwagga Smith, who spent four years on the sevens circuit with South Africa before going on to become a double World Cup winner in fifteens. “You see him at the World Cup, he brings that same energy, he is world class within both sports,” says Joe. “There are more of those players coming to the fore, you might have some who are specialist sevens players, some who can only play fifteens, but as Antoine Dupont has proved, there are some who can play both and play both well.”

Dupont, who has appeared in three tournaments for France this season, winning two of them in Vancouver and Madrid, is a case in point of the skill development sevens can foster. The scrum-half recorded four turnovers in Toulouse’s victorious Champions Cup final, more than the entire back row of their opponents Leinster, with the man himself crediting his sevens stint with helping him improve his work at the breakdown. “There are two types of sevens players in my head, those who benefit the sport of sevens by playing, and those who benefit by playing sevens,” says Joe. “Dupont is someone who does both – not only can he add value to sevens, but he’s learning things for his fifteens game.” 

There is clear reciprocity between the short and long forms of the game, and yet striking the balance between sevens having its own identity, and sevens as a tool to supplement fifteens has always been difficult – where sevens fits in the world game, particularly post-covid, is still being worked through. For Joe, his job is to find that balance for Great Britain. 

“One of the key things we’ve observed, as good as we might be in any one tournament, we need a pathway to support and to service the team. You can’t operate as a standalone team; you need it to be fed.”

A sevens-specific pathway is the way forward. “I think we want to be seen as a sport that can develop individuals in a team environment. From there, they choose their direction, they can do an Olympic cycle, they can do a degree, they can go into fifteens, and players can come from fifteens to sevens – it needs to be dynamic; it needs to be a parallel pathway. If we treat it as two separate games, it will always be two separate games.”

“Sevens is rugby under a magnifying glass. You can have a whole season in one weekend, all the highs and the lows that come with it. Everything is condensed and intensified.”

This season is the second as Great Britain on the world series, and the camp-based model they are operating under brings challenges when trying to compete with the best teams who are on full-time programmes. “There’s pluses and minuses,” believes Joe. “The biggest difference is that the players are accountable to their own physical preparation, the onus is on them to get themselves physically and mentally prepared to come into camp. That’s not always easy, it depends on the individual – you could argue a full-time environment helps development by providing daily support, but it provides the opportunity for excuses as well.”

Both the men’s and women’s sides ultimately secured their places on the series for next season by finishing in the top eight out of twelve teams, but if results hadn’t gone their way in Singapore, things could have been very different. As part of this season’s reformed structure, at the end of the season the bottom four sides competed in a repechage playoff competition with the top four sides from the Challenger series. After three pool games, sides were seeded into four ‘winner-takes-all’ qualifiers. Regardless of your results in the pool stages, if you won that, you were on the series for next season; lose, and you were relegated. On the men’s side, the USA, Samoa, Canada and Spain were at risk, with Japan, Brazil, South Africa and Spain in contention for the women. 

We’re speaking to Joe ahead of the playoffs and he isn’t convinced the new structure is good for the long-term health of sevens. “Jeopardy is great, but not when you can’t plan for the future. If you can’t plan you can’t prepare” he says. “Let’s look at Canada; they are in the promotion/relegation battle, they have a very young squad and they have a couple of injuries. If they’re relegated, that could be the difference between them having a programme in Canada next year or not. Surely that’s not good for World Rugby to have that kind of insecurity, instability and inability to plan and prepare? What do you do with your staff? What do you do with your players? Sorry, we’re only a part-time programme, we’ll have to cut your contracts, we’re only playing three tournaments next year, and by the way, we’re not getting Olympic funding. If they shut the programme down, it might take another four years to grow it again.

“It wasn’t intended, but it’s the unplanned consequences of the new structure. We want jeopardy to create intrigue, but it’s like playing Russian roulette.” 

At the end of the 2024 season, China won their place on the women’s series at the expense of South Africa, while for the men, both Samoa and Canada were relegated, with Uruguay and Kenya taking their places. If one of the GB sides had met that fate, what would that have meant for the programme? “It would have made it bloody hard. We would have had to qualify through Rugby Europe for the Challenger series. To be honest, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Uncertainty is a word that certainly sums up the life of a GB sevens player in the past few years, and a player who knows that as well as any is Emma Uren, the GB star who has taken on the captain’s armband for much of this season in the absence of Abbie Brown. In 2019, Emma signed a three-year contract with England Sevens, but a year later, she had been made redundant by the RFU along with the rest of her fellow players, at the same time as she was recovering from a grade three hamstring tear. “It was all up in the air, we didn’t know what sevens would look like after that,” she says. “Anger and disappointment was a big one. I was so excited to have signed for the next three years, and then it felt like they were just going to give up on us. They left us in the unknown for so long, and then they didn’t want to support a programme with so many amazing people in it.

“People don’t talk about the comedown from the Olympics – there’s a four year build up and then suddenly you go back to normal life. I think it hit us all quite hard.”

“A few months after lockdown I bumped into someone at the Lensbury [the squad’s former training base in Teddington] who worked for the RFU, and they were like, ‘the sevens are here right?’, and I’m like ‘no, you guys made us redundant’.

“We look back at when we were full-time with England, and we took it for granted,” she continues. “It was so nice to have a base, you have your own place to come and train and you’re not living out of a bag. I love the camp-based stuff, you spend every minute together, but you don’t feel like you have a home.” Training this week for GB has been at Hazelwood, the former home of London Irish, but management are looking into seperate bases for the men and women next year.

The restrictions of the GB programme have proved a challenge for the women this season, but they still managed to finish eighth in the league table. At the Grand Final they finished last and without a win all weekend, but Emma assures us things aren’t as grim as they seem. “It’s been a tough season, no doubt about that,” she says, “but if you actually put in perspective how we’ve done this year, I don’t think people understand how well we’re doing. Sometimes we’re only having four days of training between tournaments. Trying to get a turnaround in performance in four days when other teams have had two weeks together is so hard. I think if you put it in perspective, we’ve done really well. 

“When we go out to tournaments, we might be going out only four days before, and that’s really hard when we have such a big jet lag time – in Vancouver, we felt like we were barely there, and then we played. I think with other countries who have the funding, they’re paying to go out three, four days earlier, and I think that just gives you an advantage with being able to settle; or even the heat – we were going from six layers, double thermals in the UK to almost forty-degree weather.

“But we don’t blame the programme for our results,” she assures us. “We’ve become so resilient, and we understand there are so many people trying to give so much to the programme.”

Has it been harder to bond as a squad with so little time together? “You would think so, but if anything, we’re closer together,” says Emma. “We’ve had the same squad for the last two years, and even though we haven’t had very much contact what we’ve created, with so many ups and downs, I think that’s made us closer together. We’re really lucky we’re so tight-knit.”

Securing their place for 2025 didn’t go as close to the wire as the men, but it was hardly straightforward, with GB still needing to beat Brazil when they met on the final weekend in Singapore – when the chips were down, GB dominated with a 35-5 win. 

Next up for the team is the Olympics. Last time in Tokyo, it ended in heartbreak for GB, losing 26-19 to France in the semi, and then 21-12 to Fiji.

“I couldn’t even read ‘well done’ messages; I felt a really hard emotion that we let people down,” admits Emma. “It took me a long time to look back on it in a positive light, but people don’t talk about the comedown from the Olympics – there’s a four-year build-up and then suddenly you go back to normal life. It hit us all quite hard. I think coming fourth is such a mentally hard place to finish, because you’re so close, and you finish your Olympics on a loss.”

Emma lays bare the effect of the brutal nature of sport, and with sevens, where the difference between winning and losing is so marginal, that’s amplified to another level. But at the same time, Emma wouldn’t have it any other way.

“It’s such an extreme game, everything is exposed, if you can’t tackle or you’re not quick enough you get found out. Sometimes with fifteens, I wouldn’t have an emotion coming off the field, whereas with sevens, no matter if it’s training or a game, I will come off the field with an emotion, whether it’s high, whether it’s frustration, whatever it is, I feel something strongly from it. That emotion that you get from sevens, that’s what drives me.”

Story by James Price

Pictures by  Darryl Vides

This extract was taken from issue 26 of Rugby.
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