World Rugby releases 2025 HSBC Sevens Challenger Series calendar

Dec 05, 2024

Cape Town, South Africa, will host the first two rounds. The first round is scheduled for March 1-2, 2025, and the second round will be on the weekend of March 7-8, 2025.

Ramazani Kakooza
Journalist @New Vision

World Rugby has released the details of the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025.

Three rounds will take place in March and April to decide the top four teams that qualify for the World Sevens Series playoff competition in Los Angeles, with a chance to gain promotion to the 2025-2026 World Series.

Cape Town, South Africa, will host the first two rounds. The first round is scheduled for March 1-2, 2025, and the second round will be on the weekend of March 7-8, 2025.

Twelve teams will compete from both the men's and women's sides.

Lady Rugby Cranes

Lady Rugby Cranes

After the two rounds in Cape Town, only the top eight teams from both the men's and women's sides will travel to Krakow, Poland, for the third round set for the weekend of April 11-12.

Following the Krakow round, the four men's and women's teams with the most cumulative points across the three Challenger rounds will qualify for the World Rugby Sevens Series playoff in Los Angeles on the weekend of May 3-4.

In Los Angeles, they will face the bottom four ranked teams from the 2024-2025 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in a high-stakes promotion and relegation tournament, with four coveted places for the 2025-2026 series at stake.

Uganda has qualified both its men's and women's teams. The Rugby Cranes Sevens qualified after winning the Africa Men’s Sevens in Mauritius between June and July this year, while the women qualified after finishing third in the Africa Women’s Sevens held in Accra, Ghana, last month.

The 2025 Challenger Series format is different from this year's format. This year, all 12 teams from each side had to finish the three rounds starting from Dubai, Montevideo, Berlin (Men), and Krakow (Women) before going to Madrid for the final tournament. Next year, only the top eight will play all three rounds.

Lady Rugby Cranes Sevens head coach Charles Onen expressed concern about the new format. “It’s a tough format. This is going to be our first time playing back-to-back high-level tournaments, which requires stable momentum from the girls,” Onen said.

The Lady Rugby Cranes started their training for next year’s busy calendar yesterday (December 4, 2024) at Kyadondo Rugby Club.

 

This year, Uganda's two teams failed to make the cut for the final qualifying tournament in Madrid, both finishing sixth in their categories.

Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Czechia, Hong Kong China, Kenya, Mexico, Thailand, Poland, South Africa, and Uganda are the 11 teams that have secured their places in the women’s competition.

In the men’s competition, ten teams have already secured their places: Brazil, Canada, Chile, Georgia, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong China, Madagascar, Portugal, and Uganda.

The remaining men’s and women’s teams will qualify through the Oceania Rugby Sevens tournament on December 7-8.

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