Nations 32 Runners-up Fiji | Champions New Zealand Third England | |
Host nations Dubai
South Africa
New Zealand
United States
Singapore
England
France Date 2 December 2004 – 11 June 2005 | ||
The 2004–05 IRB Sevens World Series, was the sixth of an annual series of rugby union sevens tournaments for full national sides run by the International Rugby Board since 1999–2000. The defending series champions were New Zealand, who won the 2003–04 series.
Contents
Sevens is a stripped-down version of rugby union, with seven players on each side rather than fifteen. Games are much shorter, seven or ten minutes each half, and tend to be very fast-paced, open affairs. Sevens is traditionally played in a two–day tournament format.
The season
In an event, 16 teams are entered. 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. In descending order of prestige, they are the Cup, whose winner is the overall tournament champion, Plate, Bowl and Shield. Each trophy is awarded at the end of a knockout tournament.
In an 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.
Points schedule
The season championship is determined by points earned in each tournament. For most events, points are awarded on the following schedule: