2008–09 IRB Sevens
Series X
Hosts	United Arab Emirates South Africa New Zealand United States Hong Kong Australia England Scotland
Date	28 November 2008 – 31 May 2009
Nations	32
Final positions
Champions	South Africa
Runners-up	Fiji
Third	England
Series details
Top try scorer	Collins Injera
Top point scorer	Ben Gollings
← 2007–08 2009–10 →

The 2008–09 IRB Sevens World Series was the tenth of an annual IRB Sevens World Series of rugby union sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000.

South Africa clinched the 2008–09 World Series, its first Series title. The defending series champions New Zealand finished fourth.

Sevens is traditionally played in a two-day tournament format. However, the most famous event, the Hong Kong Sevens, is played over three days, largely because it involves 24 teams instead of the normal 16. Starting in 2008–09, the Australia leg (which involves the normal 16 teams) was spread out over a three-day period.

Tournaments

The series' tournaments are identical to 2007–2008 and span the globe:

2008-09 Itinerary ^[1]

Leg	Venue	Date	Winner
Dubai	The Sevens [2]	November 28–29, 2008	South Africa
South Africa	Outeniqua Park, George	December 5–6, 2008	South Africa
New Zealand	Westpac Stadium, Wellington	February 6–7, 2009	England
United States	Petco Park, San Diego	February 14–15, 2009	Argentina
Hong Kong	Hong Kong Stadium	March 27–29, 2009	Fiji
Australia	Adelaide Oval, Adelaide	April 3–5, 2009	South Africa
London	Twickenham	May 23–24, 2009	England
Scotland	Murrayfield, Edinburgh	May 30–31, 2009	Fiji

The 2009 Rugby World Cup Sevens was not a part of the 2008-09 series. Unlike the 2005 edition held in Hong Kong, the 2009 edition did not replace one of the 2008-09 series events. The World Cup was held in Dubai from March 5–7, 2009 and won by Wales.

Core teams

Prior to the season, the IRB announced the 12 "core teams" that would receive guaranteed berths in each event in the 2008–09 series: ^[3]

•   Argentina
•   Australia
•   England
•   France
•   Fiji
•   Kenya
•   New Zealand
•   Samoa
•   Scotland
•   South Africa
•   United States
•   Wales

The one new core team was the USA, which replaced its neighbor Canada. ^[3]

Points schedule

The season championship is determined by points earned in each tournament. For most events, points are awarded on the following schedule: ^[4]

• Cup winner (1st place): 20 points
• Cup runner-up (2nd place): 16 points
• Losing Cup semifinalists (3rd & 4th place): 12 points
• Plate winner (5th place): 8 points
• Plate runner-up (6th place): 6 points
• Losing Plate semifinalists (7th & 8th place): 4 points
• Bowl winner (9th place): 2 points

Points are awarded on a different schedule for the Hong Kong Sevens: ^[4]

• Cup winner (1st place): 30 points
• Cup runner-up (2nd place): 24 points
• Losing Cup semifinalists (3rd & 4th place): 18 points
• Losing Cup quarterfinalists (5th, 6th, 7th & 8th place): 8 points
• Plate winner (9th place): 4 points
• Plate runner-up (10th place): 3 points
• Losing Plate semifinalists (11th & 12th place): 2 points
• Bowl winner (17th place): 1 point

Tournament structure

In all tournaments except Hong Kong, 16 teams participate. Due to its place as the sports most prestigious annual event, the Hong Kong tournament has 24 teams. 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. ^[5]

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. ^[4]

In a 16 team tournament, 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. ^[5] 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. ^[6]

Final standings

The points awarded to teams at each event, as well as the overall season totals, are shown in the table below. Points for the event winners are indicated in bold. A zero (0) is recorded in the event column where a team competed 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.

2008–09 IRB Sevens – Series X  ^[7]

Pos.	Event  Team	Dubai	George	Well­ing­ton	San Diego	Hong Kong	Adel­aide	Lon­don	Edin­burgh	Points total
1	South Africa	20	20	8	12	24	20	12	16	132
2	Fiji	12	12	4	4	30	12	8	20	102
3	England	16	8	20	16	8	8	20	2	98
4	New Zealand	12	16	16	8	8	4	16	8	88
5	Argentina	4	12	12	20	8	12	0	0	68
6	Kenya	6	0	12	6	18	16	2	4	64
7	Samoa	8	4	0	4	18	2	0	4	40
8	Australia	4	0	0	2	8	6	4	6	30
9=	Scotland	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	12	24
9=	Wales	0	0	6	0	2	4	0	12	24
11	United States	0	4	4	12	0	0	0	0	20
12	Portugal	2	6	-	-	1	0	6	0	15
13	France	0	2	0	0	2	0	4	0	8
14	Tonga	-	-	0	-	4	0	-	-	4
15	Canada	-	-	0	0	3	-	0	0	3
16	Cook Islands	-	-	2	-	-	0	-	-	2
N/A	Zimbabwe	0	0	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	Japan	-	-	-	0	0	0	-	-	0
	Arabian Gulf	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
	Georgia	0	0	-	-	-	-	0	0	0
	Germany	-	-	-	-	-	-	0	-	0
	Niue	-	-	0	-	-	-	-	-	0
	Mexico	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	-	0
	Tunisia	-	0	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
	Uruguay	-	-	-	0	0	-	-	-	0
	West Indies	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	Hong Kong	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	China	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	Sri Lanka	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	Chinese Taipei	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	South Korea	-	-	-	-	0	-	-	-	0
	Spain	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0	0

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

Player statistics

Most points

Individual points [8]
Pos.	Player	Country	Points
1	Ben Gollings	England	260
2	Collins Injera	Kenya	210
3	Richard Kingi	Australia	205
4	Renfred Dazel	South Africa	191
5	Lolo Lui	Samoa	187
6	Tomasi Cama	New Zealand	174
7	Pedro Leal	Portugal	168
8	Lavin Asego	Kenya	166
9	Paul Albaladejo	France	165
=10	Ollie Phillips	England	161
=10	Mzwandile Stick	South Africa	161

Most tries

Individual tries [9]
Pos.	Player	Country	Tries
1	Collins Injera	Kenya	42
2=	Rayno Benjamin	South Africa	28
2=	Santiago Gomez Cora	Argentina	28
4	Luke Morahan	Australia	27
5	Vereniki Goneva	Fiji	24
6	Ollie Phillips	England	23
7=	Alafoti Fa'osiliva	Samoa	22
7=	Renfred Dazel	South Africa	22
7=	Robert Ebersohn	South Africa	22
7=	Pio Tuwai	Fiji	22
7=	Vuyo Zangqa	South Africa	22

Tournaments

Dubai

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	South Africa	19 – 12	England	New Zealand   Fiji
Plate	Samoa	12 – 7	Kenya	Argentina   Australia
Bowl	Portugal	24 – 0	France	Wales   Zimbabwe
Shield	United States	31 – 7	Arabian Gulf	Georgia   Scotland

South Africa

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	South Africa	12 – 7	New Zealand	Argentina   Fiji
Plate	England	24 – 7	Portugal	Samoa   United States
Bowl	France	21 – 12	Australia	Kenya   Wales
Shield	Zimbabwe	26 – 0	Scotland	Georgia   Tunisia

New Zealand

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	England	19 – 17	New Zealand	Argentina   Kenya
Plate	South Africa	26 – 12	Wales	Fiji   United States
Bowl	Cook Islands	24 – 10	Tonga	France   Australia
Shield	Scotland	24 – 0	Niue	Samoa   Canada

United States

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	Argentina	19 – 14	England	South Africa   United States
Plate	New Zealand	22 – 7	Kenya	Fiji   Samoa
Bowl	Australia	40 – 0	France	Scotland   Wales
Shield	Canada	31 – 7	Uruguay	Mexico   Japan

Hong Kong

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists	Quarter Finalists
Cup	Fiji	26 – 24	South Africa	Kenya   Samoa	England   New Zealand   Argentina   Australia
Plate	Tonga	14 – 12	Canada	Wales   France	United States   Hong Kong   Scotland   South Korea
Bowl	Portugal	14 – 12	Uruguay	Zimbabwe   Japan	Chinese Taipei   West Indies   China   Sri Lanka

Australia

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	South Africa	26 – 7	Kenya	Argentina   Fiji
Plate	England	24 – 19	Australia	Wales   New Zealand
Bowl	Samoa	35 – 14	France	Tonga   Cook Islands
Shield	United States	24 – 21	Scotland	Japan   Portugal

London

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	England	31 – 26	New Zealand	Scotland   South Africa
Plate	Fiji	24 – 10	Portugal	France   Australia
Bowl	Kenya	12 – 7	Wales	Samoa   Argentina
Shield	Canada	27 – 7	United States	Germany   Georgia

Scotland

Event	Winners	Score	Finalists	Semi Finalists
Cup	Fiji	20 – 19	South Africa	Scotland   Wales
Plate	New Zealand	34 – 12	Australia	Samoa   Kenya
Bowl	England	26 – 15	France	Argentina   Portugal
Shield	United States	12 – 10	Canada	Georgia   Spain

References

External links

• Official tournament site ^[usurped]
• "2008-09 Season Player Points and Tries". irb.com. Archived from the original on 10 February 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2013.