World Rugby has adopted a new pool format for the 2025 7s Challenger Series.

The new format of four pools of three teams each — first introduced at the HSBC SVNS Cape Town in December last year — will be used in the first round of the 7s Challenger Series from March 1-2 at the same venue.

Uganda’s men’s and women’s 7s national teams qualified for this year’s Challenger Series through the 2024 Rugby Africa 7s tournaments. They qualified alongside South Africa & Kenya (women) and Madagascar (men) at the tournaments played in Accra and Mapou respectively.

For the first round of the 2025 HSBC World Rugby 7s Challenger Series, both Uganda’s teams have been drawn in Pool C. The women are with Belgium and Colombia while the men are with Samoa and Brazil.

Pools for Round One of the 2025 7s Challenger Series:

Women’s Pools:

• Pool A: South Africa, Czechia, Hong Kong China.
• Pool B: Argentina, Thailand, Mexico.
• Pool C: Belgium, Uganda, Colombia.
• Pool D: Poland, Kenya, Samoa.

Men’s Pools:

• Pool A: Germany, Japan, Georgia.
• Pool B: Chile, Tonga, Portugal.
• Pool C: Samoa, Uganda, Brazil.
• Pool D: Canada, Hong Kong, Madagascar.

The two technical benches are expected to name Uganda’s travelling squads for the 7s Challenger Series a few days before departing for Cape Town, South Africa in the last week of February.

How does the new format work?

World Rugby’s new 7s pool format has four pools of three teams each. It was introduced following consultations with teams and other stakeholders with the aim of prioritizing player welfare and optimising their recovery during back-to-back tournaments.

It debuted in the HSBC SVNS Cape Town round in December last year and will be used again in the Singapore round. The 2025 7s Challenger Series will have back-to-back rounds in Cape Town on March 1-2 and March 8-9.

As usual in Rugby 7s, participating teams will play against each other once in their respective pools. But after the pool phase, in this new format, the pool winners will advance directly to the semifinals. The second-placed teams will compete in the 5-8th place playoffs while the third-placed teams will compete in the 9-12th place playoffs.

The post World Rugby adopts new pool format for 2025 7s Challenger Series appeared first on Kawowo Sports.