When the Ultimate Sevens Academy began in 2013, few could have predicted that it would usher in a whole new global sevens competition.
It’s been a long journey over the last 13 years, but the academy’s aim to develop sevens in Great Britain has proved fruitful, expanding into Europe and North America.
He has been at the heart of the development of Ultimate Sevens and CEO Barney Pascall is excited to turn the sevens into an enhanced circuit to attract new fans and players to rugby, after starting work with the academy in 2020.
“It’s amazing that so many unions still have it (weeks) as a professional pathway and really an aspect of rugby union performance at an elite level,” Pascal said in an interview with RugbyPass.
“But there are others who don’t.
“If you look at it through the lens of the ecosystem, including the Olympics, trying to preserve quality and increase quality, that’s part and parcel of what we want to play.
“Now we have this amazing competition at the elite level and we want to make sure that they are really connected. We want this to grow the Academy in Great Britain, which is obviously our biggest Academy at the moment.”
“But how can we take the blueprint of that and move it to other parts of the world? We’re focused on Europe to begin with and what we want to launch this year in other territories.”
“(We don’t want to suddenly) lose the principle of the Academy, let’s not suddenly go and go, this is relentlessly high performance.
“How do we find young people who may or may not play rugby, if they’re doing great, if they’re not great, get them into an ecosystem where they can enjoy it, they can experience it, they can progress, they can have the opportunity, the lucky ones to play in this competition.
“Others might turn and go, actually XVs suits me better. That’s what we can be, an aggregator if you like, for the sport of rugby and to bring new people into it.”
The Academy has already achieved several significant milestones in the last 12 months, with a successful junior sevens tournament held in Lisbon, Portugal in February, with U16 and U18 teams competing in the girls’ and boys’ competitions.
The Academy also began a partnership with US Sports Scholarships to attend programs in the US, taking advantage of the rapid growth of American college rugby.
Notably, in recent years the academy has also helped develop growing national teams, partnering with the Czech Republic Rugby Union Women’s 7s National Team to help develop their U16-U20 teams.
The Academy has teamed up in the Ultimate Sevens, with 12 players selected as ‘Academy Picks’ to accompany each team in the competition.
Among the academy players involved was Josa Cevaceva, selected from the United Kingdom Armed Forces who scored the first golden try in the history of the tournament in Cardiff for the Foudre Bleue.
Joss O’Keefe was also a notable member of the Clan Taran men’s title-winning academy in Cardiff, with Pascall seeing first-hand the immediate impact that exposure to a high-performance environment with a diverse melting pot of players has on these rising academy players.
“Credit goes to the players for embracing this concept and embracing this multicultural melting pot,” added Pascall.
“The coaches and the coaching staff and the way they’ve done it, I can’t say enough about the way they’ve approached it. They’ve built a culture very, very quickly.
“There are people who have gone on rugby sevens tours or played in competitions; you turn up on Friday and by Sunday you’ve got best mates and memories that last forever.
“This is obviously at an elite level and the rugby and the performances are a key aspect here. But all that authenticity comes through.
“I went up to Cardiff to the old clubhouse, and I walked into the players at dinner and I’ve got Fijians, Australians, Scots, Canadians dancing. I do things in my teams that inevitably at the World Series probably don’t happen as much because they’re all in their own country (teams).
“There was a lot of cross-pollination. And then for the (academy) players who were part of it, it’s great.
“It’s really great to see him (Joss O’Keefe). He had a birthday when he was in camp last week with all these rugby superstars from South Africa gather and wish him well.
“That’s an incredible story in itself. We need to build on that more.”
The active participation of academy players directly in the teams will become even more valuable this Friday in Biarritz, as the teams prepare for a critical round of action before heading to London for the finals.
With Pascall seeing the answer in Cardiff, he believes the planning going into the Ultimate Sevens and the changes made could suggest the competition is on to something, not just as an avenue for rising players, but as valuable competition to fill the gap between rounds of the SVNS Series.
“To see these faces and these players so eager to get going again (after Cardiff), it was also very heartening for us because it shows they care,” Pascall said.
“At this point, look, people are watching, people are coming. It’s really beneficial and healthy for us. “It’s been building and growing over even a relatively short season this year, because we know we want to go and grow next year.
“We want to grow in terms of the number of events and the different territories, the different countries that we’re in. It helps that way and that growth.”
