Epic Finals Day awaits at HSBC SVNS Grand Final in Madrid
- HSBC SVNS 2024 Champions to be crowned on Sunday in Madrid as 16 teams face play-offs for their HSBC SVNS 2025 status
- Men’s Championship semi-finals: Fiji v France, Argentina v New Zealand
- Women’s Championship semi-finals: Australia v New Zealand, Canada v France
- Men’s Play Off qualifier finals: USA v Samoa, Germany v Kenya, Uruguay v Chile, Canada v Spain
- Women’s Play Off finals: China v Belgium, Spain v South Africa, Japan v Argentina, Poland v Brazil
- Olympic teams in action ahead of Paris 2024 Games, including France superstar Antoine Dupont who scored a superb solo try on Saturday
- Finals day begins at 10:05 local time (GMT+2) on Sunday, tickets are available from 10 Euros at svns.com and fans around the world can watch the action live here
The inaugural HSBC SVNS will reach its climax on Sunday in what promises to be a truly epic finale to the most competitive and exhilarating season in rugby sevens history.
A large and enthusiastic multi-national crowd of more than 20,000 fans enjoyed the sun drenched entertainment on and off the pitch at the iconic Civitas Metropolitano Stadium on Saturday.
Four men’s and four women’s teams are left in the race to be crowned SVNS 2024 Grand Final Champions, while 16 teams are set for all-or-nothing Play Off qualifier finals with places in HSBC SVNS 2025 at stake.
Hopes of becoming men’s HSBC SVNS Champions 2024 are still alive for Fiji, Argentina, France and New Zealand, who will face off in the semi-finals tomorrow.
Fiji, who are 21 SVNS tournaments without a win, won all three pool games in Madrid, including some of their strongest performances this season in thrillers against New Zealand and Ireland.
Also back to their best are SVNS 2024 League Winners Argentina, unbeaten in Madrid having overcome France and Australia to top Pool A.
Argentina will face New Zealand tomorrow, with Fiji taking on France, for whom Antoine Dupont starred with a superb solo try in a 17-12 extra-time victory over Great Britain to clinch their semi-final berth.
Canada, Australia, France and New Zealand all qualified for the women’s Championship semi-finals on an unpredictable day of Grand Final action in Madrid that saw Canada shock New Zealand but only just hold off Great Britain in extra time.
Canada, who ended New Zealand’s 27-match winning streak with their 26-17 win, had to go deep into golden point time against GB, their 22-17 win securing top spot in Pool A.
Despite their loss to Canada, New Zealand still secured a place in the semi-finals with a 38-5 victory over the USA. They will face an in-form Australia side, while giant-slayers Canada will face France. Maddison Levi scored seven tries on day two as Australia recorded wins over Fiji 31-14 and France 28-14 to top Pool B.
The newly introduced high-stakes promotion and relegation play-off competition is taking place simultaneously in Madrid with teams ranked ninth to twelfth in SVNS 2024 competing with the top four teams from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2024.
The competition format involved two pools of four teams to decide who plays who in the all-important play off matches on Sunday, with the winners of the resulting four cross-over matches securing their place in HSBC SVNS 2025, while the losing teams will enter the regional qualification pathway for the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger 2025.
In the men’s HSBC SVNS Play-offs, we are guaranteed to have two new teams on the Series next season as the four SVNS 2024 sides battle it out against each other in the qualifier finals, with USA taking on Samoa and Spain facing Canada, while Sevens Challenger teams Germany and Kenya face off and South American rivals Uruguay and Chile do battle for the prize of promotion to SVNS 2025.
The women’s Play-off competition saw China beat Poland 40-0 to go unbeaten in the pool stages, setting up their winner-takes-all showdown against fellow Challenger Series hopefuls Belgium. Spain will face South Africa, Japan take on Argentina and Brazil, who also have a perfect win record so far in Madrid, will play against Poland with places in HSBC SVNS 2025 on the line.
France’s Antoine Dupont said: “We didn’t really have a special plan for golden point but we knew that if we didn’t win this game it was finished for us so the most important thing was our experience and to never give up, to give everything until the end and that’s what we did.
“There are a lot of things that can be better tomorrow, we have to be more disciplined and we have to keep the ball more because when we have the ball we are dangerous.
“It’s tiring, I will sleep very well this night and give everything again tomorrow and we will see what happens.”
Speaking about his individual try he added: “I didn’t really think in the moment, I just saw that I didn’t have a lot of space so I tried to go straight, the defender was going back so I tried. It worked for the team so it was important.
“We didn’t have a lot of space, they controlled a lot. They were going back all the time but they defended very so well so we had to find an opportunity.”
Canada women’s player Olivia Apps on beating New Zealand said: “Yeah it’s massive. We weren’t super happy with our performance against USA yesterday and knew that we had the ability to beat that team, so to be able to bounce back today and be able to do that, I’m just super proud of the group. We still have lots to improve on from the weekend, but just stoked.”
“To be able to back up what the fifteens team did a few weeks ago is really special and we knew this would be the last chance we’d get to beat New Zealand before the Olympic games so to be able to build that confidence and head into the weekend.
“Still lots of fixes, lots of things to improve on, but I’m so proud of this group. That’s been our goal all season, so I’m just ready to go for the next one. We’ve had to rebuild for the last three years since Tokyo, to think about 2024 and 2028 it’s really exciting because we have such a young group, so I’m just really proud that we were able to put in that performance today.”
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The finals day action kicks off at 10:05 local time (GMT+2) on Sunday with the Championship semi-finals beginning at 11:33 with Australia v New Zealand women. The eight all-important Play Off qualifier finals take place back-to-back from 15:08 before the women’s and men’s Championship finals at 19:49 and 20:26 respectively bring down the curtain on the HSBC SVNS Grand Final 2024.
With rugby sevens kicking off the Olympic Games on 24 July, Madrid represents the last stop on the road to Paris for the Olympic qualified teams and former World Rugby Men's 15s Player of the Year Antoine Dupont is featuring for France in Madrid as he bids to fulfil his Olympic dream.
Away from the pitch an impressive entertainment line-up is creating a buzzing festival atmosphere, including the hugely popular SVNS beach club and popular local DJ Luc Loren performing alongside live acts including Ptazeta and Chanel.
Tickets are available from 10 Euros at www.SVNS.com.
Fans can watch the HSBC SVNS action wherever you are in the world, either via broadcaster partners or online on RugbyPass TV.
