The SVNS, known as the HSBC SVNS for sponsorship reasons, is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the competition was formed to promote an elite-level of international rugby sevens and develop the game into a viable commercial product. The competition has been sponsored by banking group HSBC since 2014.
Crowd cheering at the 2009 Hong Kong Sevens.
Rugby sevens is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players playing seven-minute halves, instead of the usual 15 players playing 40-minute halves. Rugby sevens is administered by World Rugby, the body responsible for rugby union worldwide. The game is popular at all levels, with amateur and club tournaments generally held in the summer months. Sevens is one of the most well distributed forms of rugby, and is popular in parts of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and especially in the South Pacific.
Tom Lucas (in yellow) attempts to tackle Samu Bale (in white), who is running with the ball towards the try line.
During a scrum in rugby sevens, three players from each team participate instead of eight.
The Hong Kong Sevens was one of the most influential tournaments in the development and spread of rugby sevens internationally in the 20th century.
New Zealand have won thirteen World Rugby Sevens Series titles; the most of any nation that has competed in the annual series of tournaments.