After launching onto the global sevens scene in spectacular fashion last year, the HSBC SVNS 2 season two schedule has been confirmed this week.
Hot on the heels of the confirmation of an unchanged HSBC SVNS World Championship format, the 2027 season is set to give fans an even closer look at the upcoming challengers vying to enter the SVNS Series.
From the male side of the United States and Spain women’s team that successfully qualified for the SVNS series marks SVNS 2 as a tournament that can not only match the level of intensity, but produces teams that can challenge and beat the best.
RugbyPass breaks down the key talking points following the announcement and who the sides are likely to challenge for the top flight.
If it ain’t broke…
One of the big positives is that the schedule will see the competition return to Nairobi, Montevideo and Sao Paulo, with all three sides having hosted the inaugural season last year.
Of particular note was the change to the stadium in Nairobi, with the opening match of the tournament being upgraded to the recently opened 60,000-seater Talanta Sports Stadium, the largest stadium in the country.
The Nyayo National Stadium saw over 10,000 fans through the gates on the opening weekend of the SVNS 2 match earlier this year, impressing World Rugby powerhouses Kenya Rugby Union, Rugby Africa and the Kenyan government.
With the momentum around the sport only growing after the near capacity crowd at the Nyayo National Stadium during the Safari Sevens last weekend, it bodes well that Nairobi SVNS will likely break the previous crowd record with a bigger venue next year.
Montevideo, meanwhile, will see SVNS 2 return to the spiritual home of Uruguayan rugby, Estadio Charrúa, with Estádio Nicolau Alayon, home of the Super Rugby Americas Cobras, hosting the Sao Paulo game.
Road to LA28
SVNS 2 will mark a big step on the road for several teams as they look to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the 2027 season, like the SVNS series, will be critical to qualification.
The top four men’s and women’s teams at the end of next year’s HSBC SVNS World Championship will automatically qualify for the Olympics – and with the top four SVNS 2 teams advancing to the World Championship, the dream race in Hong Kong, Valladolid and Bordeaux would lock that qualification.
After that, a further six men’s and six women’s teams will qualify through regional qualifiers, meaning that even if the teams in SVNS 2 do not advance, strong form in this tournament will prove valuable if they are to advance to LA.
All teams that miss out on the regionals will get one last chance through the Olympic repechage in June 2028, with just one men’s and one women’s spot up for grabs.
Schedule change
January and February will be busy months for rugby sevens fans, with five weekends of rugby sevens action following the confirmation of the SVNS 2 schedule.
SVNS 2, after being played during February-March 2026, will be moved back a month to January-February 2027, and the action in Nairobi will take place on the 23rd-24th. January.
The secondary tournament will then take a two-week break – at which point the SVNS Series will see events Singapore and Perth, respectively, before a top-level break of a month before the two final regular-season matches in North America.
However, after a week off after Perth, Sevens fans will be able to enjoy a weekend of SVNS 2 action in Montevideo (February 20-21) and Sao Paulo (February 27-28), determining which four teams in the men’s and women’s tournaments will qualify for the World Cup.
This move forward also gives qualifying teams more time to prepare than they had in 2026, enjoying all of March to recover and prepare before the World Cup kicks off at the Hong Kong Sevens in early April.
Sides to watch
While the SVNS 2 teams have yet to be officially announced by World Rugby, based on last year’s qualifiers and this year’s form, several teams are already looming as major challengers for both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
The favorites coming into the men’s tournament are likely to be Kenya, with the side having just won the Safari Sevens 2026 and Mauritius Sevens 2026 titles on consecutive weekends, the latter of which will see them stun the world champions Blitzboks in the final.
Having just missed out on qualification thanks to the United States’ strong finish in Bordeaux, Shujaa will likely face their biggest competition in the 2026 big boosters, Germany, and last year’s SVNS series exit, Great Britain.
The women’s tournament will be a thriller, and SVNS 2 runner-up Spain managed to qualify for the World Cup last year.
A big improvement in the women’s game last year was weeks South Africa and Argentina, and with a year under their belt, they will be looking to try and build on their 2026 success with the qualifiers.
Great Britain are also likely to feature after being relegated last year, and will enter the tournament as dark horses along with Brazil, who finished ninth at the World Cup last year, the best finishers behind Spain.
Finally, there is Kenya’s women’s team, the Lionesses, who missed out on World Cup qualification last year but are likely to enter SVNS 2 in form, having recently recorded back-to-back wins at the Safari Sevens.
SVNS World Championship honors await
Even with Olympic qualification in the picture, the sides that will compete in SVNS 2 have plenty of motivation to perform big in Kenya, Uruguay and Brazil – SVNS Series qualifiers.
With teams given more than a month to prepare for the SVNS World Championship, the teams arriving at Hong Kong Week will be fresh and ready to make an impact – and judging by last year, the teams will be hot on the heels of the top eight teams.
Even before the US and Spain qualified, Hong Kong saw Kenya knock off France 21-7 to finish seventh, also nearly defeating the Blitzboks in the quarter-finals, eventually falling 26-22. The team also qualified for the Valladolid final, finishing in eighth place.
With the like Germany and Great Britain also pulling off big results in the final three weeks of the SVNS season last year, it’s clear that these SVNS 2 sides will only offer more challenges in 2027.