Champions Australia | Runners-up New Zealand | |
Host nations United Arab Emirates
Brazil
United States
Canada
France Date 3 Dec 2015 – 29 May 2016 | ||
The 2015–16 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the fourth edition of the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series (formerly the IRB Women's Sevens World Series), an annual series of tournaments organised by World Rugby for women's national teams in rugby sevens. The tour was a companion to the 2015–16 World Rugby Sevens Series for men.
Contents
The series was won by Australia who won three tour events on their way to claiming their first World Series title. The previous women's champions New Zealand finished in second place ahead of Canada and England.
The competition
There were five tournament events in 2015–16. Twelve teams competed at each event; eleven being "core" teams, with a twelfth team invited to participate in particular events (similar to previous women's series as well as the men's counterpart). The overall winner of the series was determined by points gained from the standings across the five events.
For the second time, the women's series held a core team qualifying tournament, similar to that held in the men's HSBC Sevens World Series. The qualifying event was held at University College Dublin, in Ireland, and resulted in Japan and hosts Ireland qualifying as core teams for the main 2015-16 tournament.
Teams
Eleven "core teams" participated in all series events for the 2015–16 series, the same number as the previous season. The top nine finishers in the 2014–15 series were granted core team status for 2014–15:
Two additional core teams were determined in a qualifying tournament:
Qualifying tournament
The core team qualifying tournament was held at University College Dublin in Ireland on 22–23 August 2015.
The qualifier began with a single round-robin pool stage, with teams divided into three four-team pools. The top two teams from each pool, plus the top two third-place finishers, advanced to a knockout stage. The two finalists (the semifinal winners) qualified as core teams for 2015–16.
Points schedule
The season championship is determined by points earned in each tournament. The scoring system is the same used in the previous year's series.
In the event of a tournament being abandoned, no series points are allocated.
If two or more teams are level on series points at the end of the season, the following tiebreakers are used to determine placement:
- Overall difference in points scored and allowed during the season.
- Total try count during the season.
- If neither of the above produces a winner, the teams are considered tied.
Source: World Rugby
Table
Final standings for the 2015–16 series:
Source: World Rugby