Oceania Women's Sevens Championship

Oceania Women's Sevens Championship

Sport	Rugby sevens
Founded	2007
Countries	10 (in 2016)
Most recent champion(s)	Australia (2016)

The Oceania Women's Sevens is the regional championship for women's international rugby sevens in Oceania. The tournament is held over two days, typically on a weekend. It is sanctioned and sponsored by Oceania Rugby, which is the rugby union governing body for the region.

Rugby sevens — also known as 7-a-side, or 7s — is a short form of the sport of rugby union that was first played in 1883. The first (men's) internationals took place in 1973. As women's rugby union developed in the 1960s and 1970s the format became very popular as it allowed games, and entire leagues, to be developed in countries even when player numbers were small, and it remains the main form the women's game is played in most parts of the world.

However, although the first women's international rugby union 15-a-side test match took place in 1982, it was not until 1997 before the first women's international 7s tournaments were played, when the 1997 Hong Kong Sevens included a women's tournament for the first time. Over the next decade the number of tournaments grew, with almost every region developing regular championship competitions. This reached its zenith with the first Women's Sevens World Cup in 2009, shortly followed by the announcement that women's rugby sevens will be included in the Olympics from 2016.

The first official regional 7s championship for international women's teams from Oceania was the Pacific tournament held in Port Moresby in 2007. This was followed by the Oceania Championship in 2008. The Oceania Women's Sevens has periodically served as the regional pre-qualifying competition for the Rugby 7s World Cup, or other sevens tournaments.

The following are details of all official regional women's international championships played in the Oceania/Pacific region since the first tournament in 2007, listed chronologically with the earliest first, with all result details, where known (included are the Oceania Women's Sevens and other official regional championships, e.g. the Pacific Women's Sevens tournament).

Honours

Year	Winner	Tournament location	Refs
Pacific 7s
2007	Fiji	Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea	[1]
Oceania 7s
2008	Australia	Apia, Samoa	[2]
2012	New Zealand	Churchill Park, Lautoka, Fiji	[3]
2013	Australia	Noosa, Australia	[4]
2014	New Zealand	Noosa, Australia	[5]
2015	Fiji	Auckland, New Zealand	[6]
2016	Australia	Suva, Fiji

Pacific Tournament 2007

Played 1 and 2 December at Port Moresby, PNG (source IRB)

• Fiji 40-0 Niue
• Samoa 17-17 Papua New Guinea
• Fiji 46-0 Papua New Guinea
• Samoa 29-0 Niue
• Fiji 26-7 Samoa
• Niue vs Papua New Guinea

Classification Stages

Plate Final

• Papua New Guinea 38-0 Niue

Final

• Fiji 31-5 Samoa

Oceania Championship and World Cup Qualifier 2008

Venue/Date: 25–26 July 2008, Samoa. This will be a regional qualifier for the Dubai tournament in 2009 (source FORU)

Nation	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
Australia	4	0	0	141	12
New Zealand	3	0	1	124	25
Fiji	2	0	2	89	64
Samoa	1	0	3	60	92
Niue	0	0	4	0	221

Classification Stages

Semi-finals (winners go to Dubai)

• Australia 29-0 Samoa
• New Zealand 35-10 Fiji

3rd Place

• Samoa 7-24 Fiji

Cup Final

• Australia 22-15 New Zealand

Oceania Championship and World Cup Pre-Qualifier 2012

3–4 August 2012, Churchill Park (Lautoka), Fiji ^[7]

Fiji qualify for the Asia/Oceania final qualifier in Pune. Top four teams qualify for the Borneo Asia-Pacific Sevens.

Pool Stages

Pool 1 Nation Won Drawn Lost For Against  Australia 3 0 0 113 7  Papua New Guinea 2 0 1 62 39  Samoa 1 0 2 46 51  Solomon Islands 0 0 3 24 87  Samoa 10 - 17 Papua New Guinea   Australia 50 - 0 Solomon Islands   Samoa 36 - 0 Solomon Islands   Australia 29 - 7 Papua New Guinea   Papua New Guinea 38 - 0 Solomon Islands   Australia 34 - 0 Samoa

Pool 2 Nation Won Drawn Lost For Against  New Zealand 3 0 0 100 7  Fiji 2 0 1 88 26  Tonga 1 0 2 15 99  Cook Islands 0 0 3 7 78  Fiji 36 - 7 Cook Islands   New Zealand 54 – 0 Tonga   Fiji 45 – 0 Tonga   New Zealand 27 – 0 Cook Islands   Cook Islands 0 - 15 Tonga   New Zealand 19 - 7 Fiji

Finals

Oceania Championship 2013

5–6 October 2013, Noosa, Australia.^[8][9] Five teams attending.

Nation	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
Australia	4	0	0	143	12
New Zealand	3	0	1	124	31
Fiji	2	0	2	97	62
Samoa	0	1	3	12	121
Papua New Guinea	0	1	3	7	157

Oceania Championship 2014

3–4 October 2014, Noosa, Australia.^[10][11]

Nation	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	PF	PA	Diff
New Zealand	6	6	0	0	205	31	174
Australia	6	5	0	1	191	24	167
Fiji	6	4	0	2	181	48	133
Samoa	6	3	0	3	55	138	-83
Papua New Guinea	6	3	0	3	75	134	-59
Cook Islands	6	0	0	6	40	172	-132
Tonga	6	0	0	6	31	231	-200

Notes: Samoa was ranked ahead of PNG due to winning their head-to-head match. There were no semifinals but the top two teams, New Zealand and Australia, played off in a final to decide the championship title.

Final New Zealand 31 Australia 10

Coral Coast Sevens 2014

The fifth edition of the tournament was held on 13–15 November 2014 at Sigatoka, Lawaqa Park, (Fiji).

12 women's teams and 24 men's teams were invited to compete for a total prize pool of $75,000.^[12]

International matches:

• PNG 34-7 New Caledonia
• Australia 36-5 New Caledonia

New Caledonia lost in Bowl final; PNG won the Plate final; Fiji lose Vs Serevi Selects (mainly USA) in Cup semi-finals; Australia won Cup final 19-7 Vs Serevi Selects.^[13]

Oceania Championship and Olympic Qualifier 2015

14–15 November, Auckland, New Zealand.^[14]

2016 Oceania Championship

November 11-12, ANZ National Stadium, Suva, Fiji.

References

External links

• Oceania Rugby official websire