2006–07 IRB Sevens
Series VIII
Hosts	United Arab Emirates South Africa New Zealand United States Hong Kong Australia England Scotland
Nations	32
Final positions
Champions	New Zealand
Runners-up	Fiji
Third	Samoa
← 2005–06 2007–08 →

2006–07 IRB Sevens World Series was the eighth of an annual series of rugby sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000.

New Zealand were the series champions, winning the final tournament in Edinburgh to take the lead on the standings. In that event, the then-defending series champions Fiji would have clinched the season crown by defeating Wales in the Cup quarterfinals. However, a Wales upset win opened the door for New Zealand to take the season crown by winning the Cup in Edinburgh, which they did.

Sevens is traditionally played in a two-day tournament format; however, the most famous event, the Hong Kong Sevens, is played over three days.

Calendar

Tournaments in Australia and Scotland were added for 2006-07. The Australian event returned after a three season hiatus to effectively replace Singapore. The Scotland event effectively replaced the Paris Sevens.

Leg	Venue	Date	Winner
Dubai	Dubai Exiles Rugby Ground	December 1–2, 2006	South Africa
South Africa	Outeniqua Park, George	December 8–9, 2006	New Zealand
New Zealand	Westpac Stadium, Wellington	February 2–3, 2007	Samoa
United States	Petco Park, San Diego	February 10–11, 2007	Fiji
Hong Kong	Hong Kong Stadium	March 30-April 1, 2007	Samoa
Australia	Adelaide Oval, Adelaide	April 7–8, 2007	Fiji
London	Twickenham	May 26–27, 2007	New Zealand
Scotland	Murrayfield, Edinburgh	June 2–3, 2007	New Zealand

The season

In a normal event, 16 teams are entered; in Hong Kong, 24 teams enter. In each tournament, the teams are divided into pools of four teams, who play a round-robin within the pool. Points are awarded in each pool on a different schedule from most rugby tournaments—3 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss. The first tiebreaker is the head-to-head result between the tied teams, followed by difference in points scored during the tournament.

Four trophies are awarded in each tournament, except for Hong Kong. In descending order of prestige, they are the Cup, whose winner is the overall tournament champion, Plate, Bowl and Shield. In Hong Kong, the Shield is not awarded. Each trophy is awarded at the end of a knockout tournament.

In a normal event, the top two teams in each pool advance to the Cup competition. The four quarterfinal losers drop into the bracket for the Plate. The Bowl is contested by the third-place finishers in each pool, while the Shield is contested by the last-place teams from each pool.

In Hong Kong, the six pool winners, plus the two highest-finishing second-place teams, advance to the Cup. The Plate participants are the eight highest-ranked teams remaining, while the lowest eight drop to the Bowl.

Points schedule

The season championship was determined by the total points earned in all tournaments. The points schedules used for 2006–07 World Sevens Series were tweaked slightly from the previous season at the bottom end of each scale:

Final standings

The points awarded to the teams at each event, as well as their overall series totals, are shown in the table below.

2006–07 IRB Sevens – Series VIII

Pos.	Event  Team	Dubai	George	Well­ing­ton	San Diego	Hong Kong	Adel­aide	Lon­don	Edin­burgh	Points total
1	New Zealand	16	20	12	12	18	12	20	20	130
2	Fiji	12	12	16	20	24	20	16	8	128
3	Samoa	8	4	20	16	30	16	12	16	126
4	South Africa	20	16	12	8	18	6	8	4	92
5	England	12	12	8	4	8	4	2	2	52
6	Wales	0	8	–	–	4	2	12	12	38
7	Australia	4	2	0	4	8	8	6	0	30
8	France	6	4	6	12	0	0	0	0	28
9	Scotland	0	0	0	6	8	4	4	4	26
10	Argentina	2	0	2	0	3	0	4	12	23
11	Kenya	0	0	4	0	0	12	0	6	22
12	Tonga	–	–	0	2	8	0	–	–	10
13	Canada	4	0	4	0	0	0	0	0	8
14	Tunisia	0	6	–	–	0	–	–	–	6
15*	Portugal	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	2
15*	United States	–	–	0	0	2	–	–	–	2
17	Russia	–	–	–	–	1	–	0	0	1

Sources: rugby7.com (archived), irb.com (archived), world.rugby (archived)

Notes:

   Light blue line on the left indicates a core team eligible to participate in all events of the series.

1. Points for the event winners are indicated in bold. A zero (0) is recorded in the event column where a team played in a tournament but did not gain any points. A dash (–) is recorded in the event column if a team did not compete at a tournament.
2. Teams that share a position in the standings (on the same total series points) are marked with an asterisk (*) beside their position.

The events

Dubai

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	South Africa	31–12	New Zealand	Fiji   England
Plate	Samoa	26–7	France	Canada   Australia
Bowl	Argentina	26–7	Zimbabwe	Portugal   Tunisia
Shield	Wales	33–0	Arabian Gulf	Kenya   Scotland

South Africa

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	New Zealand	24–19	South Africa	Fiji   England
Plate	Wales	26–7	Tunisia	France   Samoa
Bowl	Australia	41–7	Kenya	Argentina   Canada
Shield	Portugal	14–12	Zimbabwe	Scotland   Uganda

New Zealand

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	Samoa	17–14	Fiji	New Zealand   South Africa
Plate	England	21–12	France	Canada   Kenya
Bowl	Argentina	12–5	Tonga	Australia   Cook Islands
Shield	Portugal	26–24	Scotland	Papua New Guinea   United States

United States

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	Fiji	38–24	Samoa	France   New Zealand
Plate	South Africa	28–19	Scotland	Australia   England
Bowl	Tonga	22–17	Argentina	Canada   Kenya
Shield	United States	26–5	Portugal	West Indies   Chile

Hong Kong

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists	Quarter Finalists
Cup	Samoa	27–22	Fiji	New Zealand   South Africa	Australia   England   Scotland   Tonga
Plate	Wales	26–19	Argentina	Portugal   United States	Canada   Italy   Hong Kong   Tunisia
Bowl	Russia	21–7	France	Kenya   Japan	China   Chinese Taipei   South Korea   Sri Lanka

Australia

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	Fiji	21–7	Samoa	Kenya   New Zealand
Plate	Australia	31–0	South Africa	England   Scotland
Bowl	Wales	26–14	Tonga	Argentina   France
Shield	Canada	43–17	Japan	Portugal   Hong Kong

London

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	New Zealand	29–7	Fiji	Samoa   Wales
Plate	South Africa	14–5	Australia	Argentina   Scotland
Bowl	England	26–14	Portugal	France   Russia
Shield	Kenya	15–0	Italy	Canada   Georgia

Scotland

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	New Zealand	34–5	Samoa	Argentina   Wales
Plate	Fiji	31–7	Kenya	South Africa   Scotland
Bowl	England	31–0	Portugal	Australia   Georgia
Shield	France	21–12	Russia	Canada   Italy

References

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  "2006–07 IRB Sevens World Series" –  news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

External links

• Official tournament site ^[usurped]
• "2006-07 Season Overview". irb.com. Archived from the original on 23 October 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2013.
• "2006-07 Season Player Points". irb.com. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 12 December 2013.