2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series Explained

World Rugby Women's Sevens Series VIII
Countries:
Date:	5 October 2019 – 2 February 2020
Top Point Scorer:	Alev Kelter (171)
Top Try Scorer:	Stacey Fluhler (31)
Prevseason:	2018–19

The 2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the eighth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby.

Only five of the originally scheduled eight tournaments were completed before the series was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[1] New Zealand was awarded the series title at the end of June 2020, on account of it leading by 16 points over the second-placed Australia.^[2]

The events planned for Hong Kong, Langford and Paris were postponed,^[3] before eventually being cancelled.^[2]

Format

Twelve nations competed at each event, drawn into three pools of four teams. The top-placed teams after the pool matches at each tournament played off for a Cup, with gold, silver and bronze medals also awarded to the first three teams. The winner of the series was determined by the overall points standings gained across all events in the season.

Teams

The eleven "core teams" qualified to participate in all series events for 2019–20 were:

Brazil was promoted to core team status after winning the World Series qualifier held in Hong Kong in 2019,^[4] replacing China who were relegated after finishing as the lowest-placed core team in 2018–19.

Tour venues

The original itinerary for the 2019–20 women's circuit included three new legs to be played in Cape Town, Hamilton and Hong Kong, although only the first two were able to be played. The women's Tokyo Sevens was not included in the series due to the Olympic Sevens being scheduled there instead.

After all tournaments planned for the second quarter of 2020 were cancelled, the series was reduced from eight legs to five. All but one of the completed legs were combined sevens tournaments with their corresponding events from the men's World Series, with only the Glendale tournament hosted as a stand-alone women's event.

2019–20 Itinerary
Leg	City	Dates
United States	Glendale (Denver)	5–6 October 2019
	Dubai	5–7 December 2019
	Cape Town	13–15 December 2019
	Hamilton	25–26 January 2020
	Sydney	1–2 February 2020

The tournaments planned for Hong Kong (3–5 April 2020), Langford (2–3 May 2020) and Paris (30–31 May 2020),^[5] were ultimately cancelled due to health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[2]

Standings

Official standings for the 2019–20 series:

2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series VIII
Pos	Glendale	Dubai	Cape Town	Hamilton	Sydney	Points total
1	16	20	20	20	20	96
2	18	14	18	14	16	80
3	10	18	16	18	18	80
4	14	12	14	16	14	70
5	20	16	12	12	6	66
6	8	10	6	8	8	40
7	2	8	10	6	12	38
8	4	4	8	10	10	36
9	12	6	4	3	3	28
10	6	3	2	2	2	15
11	3	1	—	—	4	8
12	1	2	1	1	1	6
13	—	—	—	4	—	4
14	—	—	3	—	—	3

Source: World Rugby

Legend <		-- comment out
Qualification for the 2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens -->
No colour	Core team in 2019–20 and re-qualified as a core team for the next World Rugby Women's Sevens Series
Pink	Relegated as the lowest placed core team at the end of the 2019–20 series -->
Yellow	Invitational team

Placings summary

Tallies of top four tournament placings during the 2019–20 series, by team:

Team	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Fourth	Total <	--	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total -->
	4	–	1	–	5
	1	–	1	–	2
	–	3	1	–	4
	–	2	1	2	5
	–	–	1	3	4
	–	–	–	–	0
	–	–	–	–	0
	–	–	–	–	0 -->
Totals	5	5	5	5	20

Tournaments

Glendale

See main article: 2019 USA Women's Sevens.

Event	Score	Semifinalists
Cup	26–7	(Bronze)
5th Place	12–7
Challenge Trophy	36–14

Dubai*

See main article: 2019 Dubai Women's Sevens.

Event	Score	Semifinalists
Cup	17–14	(Bronze)
9th Place	26–21	-
11th Place	14-12	-

Cape Town*

See main article: 2019 South Africa Women's Sevens.

Event	Score	Semifinalists
Cup	17–7	(Bronze)
9th Place	19–7	-
11th Place	26-7	-

5th Place and Challenge Trophy not contested

Players

See main article: 2019–20 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series squads.

Tries scored

Rank	Player	Tries
1		31
2		26
3		21
4		18
5		18
		15¸
		6
		7 -->

Points scored

Rank	Player	Points
1		171
2		170
3		164
4		155
5		139

Updated: 4 February 2020

Awards

Tour Leg	Player	Points
+Impact player awards
Glendale		63
Dubai		78
Cape Town		58
Hamilton		59
Sydney		56

+Total impact player points	Player					Total
1	16	38	24	101	279
2	51	18	16	105	242
3	48	10	30	84	222
4	47	16	15	95	220
5	73	12	15	80	219
6	27	23	10	101	217
7	26	24	11	90	210
8	27	17	21	71	191
9	56	6	18	73	183
10	42	10	18	73	181