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Instant Expert – Rugby sevens at the Olympic games

John Foley

Wales celebrate winning the 2009 Rugby Sevens World Cup

Osea Kolinisau of Fiji

Martin Bustos Moyano of Argentina scores the winning try in the quarter-final against South Africa

Brian Carney in action for Ireland who bowed out at the pool stages

South Africa's Mpho Mbiyozo

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The prospect of Luke Fitzgerald, Keith Earls and maybe even the likes of Blackrock's new starlet Andrew Conway taking all before them at the Rio Olympics is a mouth-watering one. However, it's still far from certain if rugby sevens will cross over into the mainstream just because there's a gold medal out there to be won. Last Friday the International Olympic Council announced that the truncated version of the game, along with golf, will join the festivities for the 2016 and 2020 Games, by which time the powers-that-be will decide whether or not to make the sports permanent fixtures on the Olympic calendar.

As the game stands, sevens is very much one for fringe and development players, as anyone who has caught a glimpse of it from far-flung locations like Dubai and Hong Kong will attest. Ireland have never been to the forefront of the game, the IRFU deciding not to invest in it to the same extent as most of the other rugby-playing nations. It often seems to be the game's lesser lights like Samoa or Fiji who make a big impact at these tournaments, freed as they are from constraints like contested scrums that the 15-man game brings. Indeed, at the most recent Sevens World Cup in Dubai last March, the semi-finalists were Wales, Argentina, Samoa and Kenya.

With sevens it's all about soft hands, searing pace, side steps and crazy 90-yard solo sprints up the touchline. In other words, more bang for your buck. Exactly the kind of thing those Olympic folk love.

In Rio there will be men's and women's events, with the International Rugby Board stating that the competition would replace the World Cup as the pinnacle of this form of the sport. A normal sevens match consists of two halves of seven minutes with a one-minute half-time break. The final of a competition, as in the case of the IRB Sevens World Series, is played over two halves of 10 minutes each.

Each team can interchange from five substitutes. Conversions must be taken as drop goals in order to speed up play. Scrums have three men instead of eight and the scoring team kicks off rather than the defending team. Yellow cards bring a two-minute suspension.

With seven years to go to kick-off, at least the IRFU have a bit of time to get their sevens house in order and maybe develop a squad capable of challenging for a medal.