The first ever RugbyX tournament takes place on October 29th at the O2 in London and things are heating up ahead of the competition.
Earlier this week TRM confirmed the final
team line-up and the draw as to who will play who.
In the men’s draw hosts England will face Ireland and the Barbarians in Group A while France, the USA and Argentina make up Group B.
While in the women’s event there are only
four nations involved so there will be two semi-finals which see England take
on France and the USA face Ireland.
The day will be split into two sessions,
the afternoon session between 4pm and 6pm, and the evening session between 8.30pm
and 10.30pm.
In the opening session the men’s group stage will take place along with the women’s semi-finals, with the men’s quarter-finals, semi-finals and final, along with the women’s 3rd/4th place play-off and final taking place in the evening.
The sport has selected teams that are among
the leading Sevens Nations in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series and there are
a number of stars already confirmed for the tournament.
Among them are England’s Dan Norton, who is
the all-time leading try-scorer in the sevens game, USA’s double world player
of the year Perry Baker and France’s Terry Bouhraoua.
While England’s women’s captain Abbie Brown
will be among the women stars on show.
Speaking on RugbyX World Rugby CEO Brett
Gosper believes that this will help grow rugby as a sport.
“The sanctioning of RugbyX marks an exciting step on World Rugby’s journey towards making the sport more accessible, providing an important entry point for new audiences to experience the joy, speed and skill of rugby in an indoor arena environment. Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any sport and RugbyX presents a great opportunity to capitalise on increasing global interest in the days immediately preceding the Rugby World Cup final in Japan,” he said.
The new sport has the core fundamentals of full contact rugby with variations on certain laws to make the game faster in a five vs five match.
For example, there are quick-tap restarts
on the goal-line, with no conversions. While there no line-outs as they are
replaced by quick throw-ins from the team in possession during the 10 minute
games that feature no half-time.
Tickets are available for both sessions on Ticketmaster and AXS. If you haven’t already, sign up to our newsletter to receive a 20% Off discount code on RugbyX Tickets!
