The squads for the inaugural RugbyX tournament have been announced with the competition set to take place at the 02 in London next Tuesday the 29th of October.
There are a host of star sevens players taking to the field in the new form of rugby which sees two teams of five take each other on in 10 minute match.
For the host nation England have brought in the big guns in both the men’s and women’s teams with leading sevens try-scorer Dan Norton joined by Richard de Carpentier and Will Edwards in the men’s 12-player squad. Meanwhile England’s women’s side sees the likes of sevens captain Abbie Brown, Deborah Fleming and Heather Fisher in the squad.
There are also star names among the Barbarians contingent with Osea Kolinisau linking up with 2016 sevens Olympic gold medalists Saminsoni Virivi, Jasa Veremalua, Vatemo Ravouou and Kitione Taliga along with the likes of South African legend Kyle Brown and Wales’ Luke Treharne.
England rugby union legend Danny Care takes charge of the Barbarians side.
Meanwhile, USA have the likes of Perry Baker and speedster Carlin Isles in their men’s squad.
On a different note Ireland’s team not only contains six players from their successful 2019 Hong Kong Sevens campaign, but sees Love Island star Greg O’Shea make his first international appearance since featuring on the show. The Irish will be captained by Billy Tardis as they look to win another big competition.
France’s squad features winger Steven Parez and back Jean-Pascal Barraque, who has 523 points in his sevens career to date. While their women’s outfit includes Montserrat Amendee.
Finishing up the line-up is Argentina who have quality sevens players such as Fernando Luna, Joaquin de la Vega and Laurato Baxan Velez among a talented squad.
Speaking ahead of the event technical director Ben Ryan is delighted with the quality of players that are set to turn out for the tournament.
“We are excited with the standard of players that teams have selected for the first RugbyX tournament. It shows that unions are eager to put in a strong performance and players really want to try the new format especially inside the O₂ Arena. As promised, fans can expect an elite level of performance with some of the best Sevens players from across the world,” he said.
Having been approved by the World Rugby’s Executive Committee earlier in the year this is the first-ever RugbyX tournament which sees a host of new rules in what is set to be a faster-paced version of sevens rugby.
Head over to the RugbyX Twitter account https://twitter.com/rugbyxofficial?lang=en to check out all the full squads as well as all the information you need to know of how to get involved in the event.
