2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series

2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens
2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens
Series IX
Hosts	UAE (2 events); Spain (2 events); Canada; France;
Date	26 November 2021 – 22 May 2022
Final positions
Champions	Australia
	← ← 2021 (cancelled); 2019–20 2022–23 →

The 2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series is the ninth edition of the global circuit for women's national rugby sevens teams, organised by World Rugby. The ninth edition was meant to be played a year earlier, but the 2021 Series was officially cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and just two invitational four-team tournaments were played during the season instead. The series was hampered with missing core teams throughout most of the competition, including two events in Dubai which saw a Great Britain sevens team replacing England, Scotland and Wales. New Zealand missed the first four events, however were participants in the final two. Australia were declared champions on the second-last event in Langford, British Columbia, Canada.[1][2]

Core teams

Due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the core teams remained unchanged from the shortened 2019–20 series and cancelled 2021 season.[3][4] The eleven core teams qualified to participate in all events for 2021–22 are:

Notes

Brazil had core team status for the cancelled 2020–21 series, after winning the qualifier event at Hong Kong in 2019.[5] They retained that status for 2021–22.
On 28 February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, World Rugby announced it had suspensded the Rugby Union of Russia from World Rugby membership, and all international rugby and cross-border club rugby activities until further notice. The suspension also included Belarus. Later, on 10 March, the World Rugby Executive Council confirmed the suspension was permanent, thus Russia would not compete in all further competitions available (2023 Rugby World Cup, 2022 Men's World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series, 2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series).[6][7]

Tour venues

The schedule for the series is:[8][9]

2021–22 Itinerary
Leg	Stadium	City	Dates	Winner
Dubai (2 events)	The Sevens	Dubai	26–27 November 2021	Australia
Dubai (2 events)	The Sevens	Dubai	3–4 December 2021	Australia
Spain (2 events)	Estadio Ciudad de Málaga	Málaga	21–23 January 2022	United States
Spain (2 events)	Estadio de La Cartuja	Seville	28–30 January 2022	Australia
Canada	Westhills Stadium	Langford	30 April – 1 May 2022	Australia
France	Stade Ernest-Wallon [10]	Toulouse	20–22 May 2022

Standings

Due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, World Rugby revised the method used for the series standings in the interest of fairness to teams not able to participate in all rounds of the 2021–22 season.[11]

This system excludes the two lowest-scored rounds from each team in the overall standings.
So, with six tournaments in the series, only the best four results for each team will contribute to the final standings.[11]

The points awarded to teams at each event, as well as the overall season totals, are shown in the table below. Points for the event winners are indicated in bold. An asterisk (*) indicates a tied placing. An obelisk (^†) is recorded in the event column where a low-scoring round is excluded from a team's overall points total. A dash (—) is recorded in the event column if a team did not compete at a tournament.

2021–22 World Rugby Women's Sevens – Series IX
Pos	Event Team	Dubai I	Dubai II	Málaga	Seville	Langford	Toulouse	Points total
1	Australia	20	20	16^†	20	20		80
2	France	16	16	14	12^†	14		60
3	United States	8^†	12	20	14	10		56[lower-alpha 1]
4	~~Russia~~[lower-alpha 2]	14	14	18	10	—	—	56*[lower-alpha 1]
5	Ireland	4^†	8	12	18	16		54
6	Fiji[lower-alpha 3]	18	18	—¹	—	8		45
7	Canada	6^†	6	10	8	12		36
8	England[lower-alpha 4]	—⁶	—^2†	8	16	3		33
9	Spain	3^†	10	4	6	6		26
10	Brazil	10	4	2^†	4	4		22
11	New Zealand[lower-alpha 5]	—	—	—	—	18		18
12	Great Britain[lower-alpha 4]	12	3	—	—	—	—	15
13	Poland	—	—	6	3	—	—	9
14	Belgium	—	—	3	2	—	—	5
15	Japan	—	—	—	—	2	—	2
16	Portugal	—	—	—	1	—	—	1[lower-alpha 6]
17	Mexico	—	—	—	—	1	—	1[lower-alpha 6]
18*	Scotland[lower-alpha 4]	—^TBD	—^TBD	—	—	—		0
18*	South Africa	—	—	—	—	—		0

Source: World Rugby

Legend
No colour	Core team in 2021–22 and in position to re-qualify as a core team for the following season
Black	Banned from participating in the 2021–22 series.
Pink	Relegation position for lowest-placed core team at the end of the 2021–22 series [11]
Yellow	Invited team

Notes

Tie-breaker margin of points scored for and against in all matches: United States +106, Russia –14.
Russia, who had competed at the first four events in the series, was suspended on 10 March 2022 by World Rugby (until further notice) following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All international rugby and cross-border club rugby activities were suspended, as was the membership of the Rugby Union of Russia. On 10 March the World Rugby Executive Council confirmed the decision, and for the remainder of the series the Russia women's sevens team will not be allowed compete.[6][7] Furthermore, as World Rugby did with England, Russia's points at the end of the season were adjusted to thirty-seven rather than the fifty-six that they had accumulated over the four events, consistent with the World Rugby Sevens Series proportioned-basis points system.[7] As such, Russia's total points are marked with an asterisk.
Fiji withdrew from both events in Spain following positive COVID-19 tests in their squad.[12] However, the team was not replaced for Málaga[13] where their matches were recorded as 0–0 byes and their opponents awarded wins via walkover. As such, despite not playing, Fiji was placed twelfth in Málaga and received one point from the event toward their season standings.[14]
Great Britain represented England, Scotland and Wales in the first two events held in Dubai. For the remaining events, England (as well as Scotland and Wales, if invited) competed in their own right.[9] Points accumulated by Great Britain in Dubai were distributed to the separate national unions. The methodology wasn't clarified, however England received eight points: six points for Dubai I, and two points for Dubai II.[18]
Because of travel logistics and travel-related restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand did not participate in the first four of the six sevens events.[15] Due to their absence from the events in Dubai and Spain,[16][17] they were the only core team as of the Langford event that had yet to participate in the tournament and had the lowest points of all of the core teams.
Tie-breaker margin of points scored for and against in all matches: Portugal –211, Mexico −228.

Placings summary

Tallies of top four tournament placings during the 2021–22 series, by team:

Team	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Fourth	Total
Australia	4	—	1	—	5
United States	1	—	—	1	2
Fiji	—	2	—	—	2
Russia	—	1	—	2	3
Ireland	—	1	1	—	2
New Zealand	—	1	—	—	1
France	—	—	2	2	4
England	—	—	1	—	1

Statistics

Points

Tries scored
Rank	Player	Tries
1	Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe	32
2	Charlotte Caslick	24
3	Faith Nathan	22
4	Thalia Costa	21
5	Beibhinn Parsons	17
6	Jade Ulutule	16
	Jaz Gray
	Maddison Levi
9	Alena Tiron	15
	Alowesi Nakoci
	Séraphine Okemba

Points scored
Rank	Player	Points
1	Jade Ulutule	182
2	Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe	160
3	Lucy Mulhall	137
4	Charlotte Caslick	120
5	Faith Nathan	110
5	Sharni Williams	110
7	Thalia Costa	105
8	Tia Hinds	98
9	Raquel Kochhann	88
10	Kristina Seredina	86

Updated: 30 January 2022

Performance

Impact Player winner
Tour Leg	Player	Points
Dubai I	Charlotte Caslick	55
Dubai II	Charlotte Caslick	75
Málaga	Séraphine Okemba	71
Seville	Karolina Jaszczyszyn	92
Langford	Reapi Ulunisau	80

Total Impact Player points
Rank	Player	T	B	O	C	Total
1	Charlotte Caslick	76	20	31	130	328
2	Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe	39	34	17	106	281
3	Lucy Mulhall	78	14	12	131	275
4	Séraphine Okemba	43	16	23	72	209
5	Coralie Bertrand	47	7	27	80	202
6	Faith Nathan	56	23	5	64	199
7	Abbie Brown	49	10	18	79	194
8	Megan Jones	37	9	22	85	193
9	Jade Ulutule	48	14	17	66	189
10	Madison Ashby	66	10	12	69	189

Key: (T) = 1 point, (B) = 3 points, (O) = 2 points, (C) = 1 point