Rugby League World Sevens - The Future

The Future

In the years since the tournament was indefinitely suspended in 2004 other tournaments have provided continued international rugby league sevens events.

Actor Russell Crowe hosts the Orara Valley Axemen Sevens Tournament at Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales north coast. This tournament is participated in by teams representing countries of the world, local clubs and a few clubs from Brisbane. In 2005 the Souths Logan Magpies from the Queensland Wizard Cup and the Gold Coast Titans, who entered the NRL in 2007, were two well known clubs that participated.

In 2008, it emerged that the World Sevens could make a comeback by 2010. The competitors in the revived competition would be international sides rather than the assorted mix of clubs, nations and other representative sides of the past. A competition between only national sides is considered to have value in growing rugby league nations to a higher skill level and the exposure to new audiences globally of the sport via broadcast coverage.

The other motivation for this potential change was voiced by Tas Baiteri, International Development Officer for the Rugby League International Federation, who stated: "We would be looking at just having nations in the World Sevens. By having an Australian team means that it will not interrupt preparations for any NRL clubs". One reason for the hiatus following the 2004 event was reluctance of NRL clubs to use so many of their first team players.

With proposed entrants in future competitions being national teams, the need for the tournament to be hosted in Sydney each year has been debated with some arguing that the World Sevens should used as a tool to spread the sport further by hosting in a succession of locations gloablly.

According to Rugby League Review, there is a possibility that the Sevens derivative could be replaced by a nines tournament should there be enough support from the rugby league authorities entering teams.