Rugby Sevens is a fan phenomenon. Teams of seven players compete against each other over two seven-minute halves with a one-minute half-time break.  A truly global season is played, with major tournaments in almost every country in the world as there are no interruptions with “Sevens club rugby”.  

The rules are similar to 15-man rugby union, with obvious differences due to fewer players (such as three-man scrums and a much thinner defensive line).  Tournaments feature 32 countries and, unlike the 15-man game, upsets occur all the time – with powerhouse nations losing to traditional rugby minnows.

The finals of the tournaments are played for a Cup, Plate and Bowl; with the Cup representing the elite team and the Bowl normally representing to third-tier or developing nations.

'The New Zealand team have declared that their goal is to become the first nation ever to clean sweep the entire year, and go undefeated throughout 2008'


However, a long black shadow has been cast over the 2008 series. New Zealand are currently on a world-record 42-game winning streak. They have won seven consecutive tournaments, including every tournament of this year’s series.  Their traditional rivals Fiji (whose national sport is Sevens) are unable to halt the Kiwi momentum, as evidenced in a 34-0 thumping in the Hong Kong semi-final.

The IRB Sevens global series has been running since 2000. Current captain DJ Forbes summed it all up in his press conferences after the Hong Kong success. He stated the team has developed a self-belief that made them more difficult to contain in major games.

"You have to be confident going into finals games," he said. "It is special to us and we have made a bit of history which is something that the boys can be proud of. We want to be a team that is remembered."

Gordon Tietjens and Eric Rush, the coaches of this unique team, have set continual benchmarks and indicators for the players.  Their central defensive goal is not to concede more than two tries per game, and their tackling is brutal. The platform is now set and the team have declared that their goal is to become the first nation ever to clean sweep the entire year, and go undefeated throughout 2008.

They have unveiled a style of play this year based around an aggressive defensive system and wide link running. It is a style that that other nations simply cannot contain.

The 2008 series has three rounds remaining - in Adelaide, London and Edinburgh. New Zealand currently hold 110 series points, with South Africa a very distant second on 72 points. It would take a huge sudden slump of form and a remarkable injection of play into other nations for the might of this Kiwi juggernaut to be stopped.

If the national team, the All Blacks, played with the same level of confidence and ability to dominate that their Sevens cousins do, then surely they would be multiple World Cup winners. As has been said many times before, it is confidence and belief that are the greatest assets to any great team.