Australia’s Gold Coast will host the first tournament of the 2011-2012 World Sevens Series and Port Elizabeth will host South Africa’s event.

Australia used to be the 6th event on the calendar but it has been moved forward to November to open the series.

The Australian beach resort holds a sevens tournament at this time of year with many of the Pacific’s World Series players using it as preparation going into Dubai. Now it is a fully-fledged international event.

I expect that the Gold Coast will attract a bigger crowd than Adelaide and a lot more Kiwis will make the trek. No offense to Australia’s garden city but a large cricket ground is not really aligned to the festival atmosphere that is international sevens.

Also, the Gold Coast is just one hour’s drive from Brisbane which has a lot more international flights operating than Adelaide and a population of 2million+.

George finally gives way to a larger venue

The South African leg of the world series moves to Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Province for 2011-2012.

George was a very strange venue because of its extremely small size – it only holds 10,000 people. For a rugby-mad country like South Africa with many large grounds and a population of 50m, it made no sense.

Tokyo still on the cards?>/h3>

There has been talk of Tokyo hosting an IRB Sevens event in 2011-2012 but it remains to be seen whether this will happen in light of Japan’s recent devastation.

IRB World Sevens Series venues and their capacities

Gold Coast: 28,000

Dubai: 50,000

Port Elizabeth: 48,000

Wellington: 40,000

Las Vegas: 36,000

Hong Kong: 40,000

London: 82,000

Murrayfield: 67,000

Samoa after their victory in Las Vegas 2010

Uale Mai left the Samoan Sevens squad at the conclusion of the 2009-2010 season as he headed for professional rugby in Spain.

He was supposed to take up a contract in England earlier than that but visa issues meant the opportunity was lost. That meant the vastly experienced playmaker was able to lead Samoa to the IRB Sevens World Series championship.

But after winning 4 tournaments last season, Samoa have not won any of the 5 tournaments played this season.

Samoa have been a half stride off the pace this season and that is all it takes in the highly competitive sevens scene where any one of 6 teams are capable of winning.

New Zealand, England, Fiji, Australia, South Africa and Samoa have a realistic chance of winning every tournament they play in.

Samoa are just not quite as clinical as last season. Key player Lolo Lui has been injured and suspended and try scoring sensation Mikaele Pesamino has lost form and been left out.

Pesamino was Player of the Year last season but Tom Iosefo has taken his place and is going very well.

But Samoa convincingly beat South Africa towards the end of Day#1 26-17 in Adelaide looking very good in the process.

A resurgent French side gave them a good run earlier in the day but eventually lost 19-12.

Faosiliva is almost unstoppable when he is in motion. Trevaranus is similar.

Lui and Uale Mai are combining well and we are seeing Samoa as we did throughout most of last year – strong, quick and dominant.

I expect them to go far into the finals tomorrow and would not be surprised if they won the tournament, defending their 2010 title.

1. Samoa are clearly the best team at present

That’s 2 in a row and when it counts, Samoa are superb
They have dangerous players all over the field
Uale Mai, Lolo Lui and Mikaele Pesamino in the backs and Otto, Mikaele & Treviranus in the forwards. Only Fiji come close in terms of strength and speed in the forwards

Samoa presented with the USA Sevens Trophy for 2010

2. The competition has gotten more even

i) Any 1 of the top 7 teams in the World Series can realistic win a tournament

1. New Zeaand
2. Samoa
3. Fiji
4. Australia
5. England
6. Kenya
7. South Africa

ii) The second-tier teams are catching up
USA; Wales and Argentina have all improved and as they proved in Adelaide, all are capable of beating the top 7.

With 2016 looming, I expect things to really hot up over the next 2-3 years.

iii) There were a significant number of upsets
- USA over England
- Wales over Fiji
- Australia over England
- Tonga over Scotland
- Japan over France
- Australia over Fiji
- Argentina over South Africa
- Japan over Tonga

3. Australia are back

They had been building in New Zealand and made the semi-finals in Las Vegas. Then, victories over England and Fiji secured them another semi-final berth and enough World Series points to secure 4th place

4. South Africa has serious depth in Sevens Rugby

They lost captain Mzwandile Stick and experienced forward Marius Schoeman but the next tier of experience really stepped up (Ryno Benjamin, Cecil Afrika and Frankie Horne).

The latest find is Sampie Mastreit, a very fast 19 year old who scored 9 tries in Adelaide, second only to Mikaele Pesamino

5. The number of exciting players has never been bigger

Pesamino, Mai, Cakau, Vicago, Roko, Gollings, Turner, Wade, Royle, Tokula, Baker, Cama, Forbes, Turnbull, Injera, Kayange, Simiyu, Mastreit, Afrika, DuPreez, Swiryn, Emerick, Malifa, Palma, Tipuric, Sitauti, Karauria-Henry, Stannard, Tupuailei, Delmas, Faleuka, Albaladejo, Ma’afu