The season has finished in the Northern hemisphere – all except for the 7s teams who will compete for the medals at the Olympics in Rio from 6th to 11th August.
The Women’s’ tournament is from 6th to 8th followed by the blokes 9th – 11th.
Unlike the World Series 7s there are just 12 teams in each section who have qualified.
They will both compete in 3 Pools (of 4 teams – obviously) at the Deodono Stadium.
The top 2 from each pool plus the best 2 best placed runners up will go forward to the knock out stage.
In the men’s contest Team GB are in the so called ‘Group of Death’ (Pool C) along with New Zealand, Kenya and Japan.
But the other two pools also have teams that have won titles in the World Series, so it will not be easy for anyone – even Fiji.
It is equally open in the Women’s tournament, although I am hopeful that Team GB will be on the rostrum getting a medal on the 8th – not sure the colour but I expect Australia to be there too.
Much of the two competitions span weekdays – which augurs well for some good rugby in between Super Rugby and leading nicely to the Rugby Championship.
After that we start again with the Premiership, Pro12 and the Top 14 – the Mrs is right chuffed I can tell you!
Both Team GB squads have only been together from the beginning of this month and it will be interesting to see the make-up of the final 12 who will fly down to Rio at the end of July.
Expect some exciting stuff from both Men and Women as they fight it out for just three medals!
rugbyoldbloke blog 