Women Grand Prix Series And FIRA 7s Division A/B

[mestre Profile Website]

Women GPS will start the 7th June and I do not see any information regarding Tournament format...

[NedRugby Profile]

The best information I could find was in the website of a Swedish club: http://lugirugby.com/
First round of Grand prix in Moscow, 7 june, second round the next week.

The girls will compete in group A against traditional women’s World Series powers Russia and Spain, along with Series newcomers Ireland as well as the lesser known quantities of Wales and Portugal.

By proces of elimination group B must be England France Netherlands Germany Italy Belgium.

Norway union is doing a better job than FIRA with its website. Here is the program for series A: http://rugby.no/bergen2014/programme/

[NedRugby Profile]

I can add that the grand prix is important this year to decide core status for the world series.

[mulu Profile]

so they don't follow the men's format with 3 groups of 4 teams?

[NedRugby Profile]

Who can say?

[mestre Profile Website]

So according to NedRugby and http://lugirugby.com/ we have two groups of six teams as follows:

Group A
Russia, Wales, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Sweden

Group B
Belgium, Germany, Netherland, Italy, France, England

Will FIRA keep this format, or will there be any change...?

[johnbirch Profile]

FIRA has always been two pools of six - has been since the tournament had 12 teams. But it is possible that they may have - at the last minute - moved to the IRB format

It won't directly decide WSWS status - but the top two teams (apart from England, Spain and Russia) will go to the WSWS qualifier in September.

[mestre Profile Website]

FIRA has always been two pools of six - has been since the tournament had 12 teams. But it is possible that they may have - at the last minute - moved to the IRB format

It won't directly decide WSWS status - but the top two teams (apart from England, Spain and Russia) will go to the WSWS qualifier in September.

The Men format changed, so it is possible the Women format change aswell...

[NedRugby Profile]

4 games is alot to play on day 1, but 2x6 avoids messing with 2 best 3rd place teams which l don't like.

[Rugby7 Profile]

Norway union is doing a better job than FIRA with its website. Here is the program for series A: http://rugby.no/bergen2014/programme/

2014 Series A pools and list of matches are available on FIRA website (http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/group-202.htm) for a long time now.

Pools (2x6) of WGPS 2014 have been removed on FIRA webwsite.

[NedRugby Profile]

And here is FIRAs version of the Grand Prix poules, which start next weekend:

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http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/group-210.htm

[NedRugby Profile]

Scrumqueens have posted an article about qualifying for next season's WSWS. Hong Kong are hosting a tournament in September. It was first planned to have 2 teams from each continent, but now there will be 3 from Europe and Asia, and only 1 from NACRA and Oceania. I think this is sensible from a competitive point of view. The top 4 will join the other 7 core teams. France must be favourites to win I think. Fiji and Japan will probably join them. I hope Netherlands get the 4th spot, but there will be competition from Brazil, China and S.Africa. All these countries are capable to carry out a surprise on a good day.
Portugal, HK, Argentina, Mexico and Kenya will be there to gain experience.

[johnbirch Profile]

Frankly, NedRugby, if the Dutch do not qualify they may as well forget Rio. And they damn well should qualify too - though they have developed and ability to choke rivalled only by the New Zealand men (c1990s-2010) which makes watching them an unnerving experience.

I'd be very surprised if China were in the running - Portugal probably more likely to upset a few people.

[victorsra Profile Website]

HK Qualy teams: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Fiji, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France, Netherlands and Portugal.