Changes to Villager Schools Sevens
The 39th Villager Sevens Tournament takes place at the Villager Football Club, Brookside, Claremont, on 31 August this year. There are considerable changes to the tournament structure.
The Villager Sevens Rugby Tournament is set to work it’s magic once again this year. The magic will include a modernising of the event in line with the international Club Sevens format. This has proved extremely popular and is very successfully applied in most world Sevens rugby events.
At the end of August, twenty Southern Suburbs Schools will take part in South Africa’s founding Schools Sevens Rugby Tournament, the oldest in this country, first played in 1969 at the Villager Brookside Club.
The Villager Sevens has always taken place on the first Friday after the last of rugby matches for the Cape schools. This ensures that all the School’s Sevens players are firing at peak fitness and ready to compete and enjoy in the year’s final rugby event.
This tournament has seen many spectacular rugby games over the years and has grown into one of the most popular events on the Schools Sport and social Calendar.
Times change of course and 2007 will now see a change to the competition rules – called for by spectators and requested by many schools who thought that the evening could be engineered into a shorter and more compact event, which will without doubt improve the fun and entertainment for the teams and spectators alike.
Changes for 2007
As a result of wanting to speed up the tempo of this tournament, the new “games” format now rotates around five separate rounds, on a knock out basis, that will start at 14.20 and end at 20.00. The beauty of this new system is that all the games are now going to be played on the same Villager Stadium field and spectators will be able to enjoy the whole tournament, without moving from their seats. In addition to this, all teams now compete in the same draw, for the “VILLAGER 7’S TROPHY”. At the end of the event, the winning school will have its name engraved on the trophy!
A benefit of this new format is that, gone is the need for spectators to walk between three different fields in order to see the match of their choice. All the matches now come to the spectators! The need for two “separate” competitions, as in the past, now falls away.
All matches will be played on the Stadium Field. This offers plenty of viewing space for spectators in front of the surrounding buildings, as well as on the grass embankment. With all matches taking place on one field, the team support will be more vocal and the atmosphere will be much more exciting. The event has been shortened and will kick off at 14.20 and the tournament will end at 20.00, after the “Final Match”, and a brief prize giving event on the field at 20.00.
Some Highlights
A great deal of work, planning and development has been put into turning the Villagers Sevens into the finest Schools Sevens Tournaments in the Cape. The event is sponsored once again by Sportsman’s Warehouse, as it has been from inception. Here’s a sample of some of the evening’s highlights, besides the Rugby games.
? Music throughout the tournament, hundreds of give-a-ways and hamper prizes
? A “Food Court” area, competitions, a stadium Mascot, and “player of the match” awards
? “Best Banner” brought to the Stadium will receive a prize
? Spectators will also walk off with valuable prizes, throughout the evening
? Many lucky spectators will each receive a “give-a-way” item at the gates upon entering the grounds
? The program is now a Collector’s Booklet for spectators and players to keep
Ample security will be in place and secure parking is provided.
The printed program will be informative, including comprehensive articles on the venue, matches to be played, schools taking part, names of the players, history of the Tournament, names of previous winners and a map of the Grounds. A photographer will also be on the premises to catch all the action, and pictures will be sent to schools afterwards and photographs will be printed in next years program.
Food and refreshments will be provided at a designated “FOOD COURT” area, overlooking the field. This will include numerous food outlets, including pizzas, burgers, slap chips and many others as well as cold drinks. The large Villager Rugby bar is also open – but is restricted to over 18’s.
Selecting a Province Schools Sevens team
Anton Moolman is the current coach of the Western Province Sevens Senior Team. Anton has confirmed his full support for this new event, and will be observing all the games during the tournament.
Anton has confirmed that he will select a combined Schools Sevens Team from all the talented players on show during the evening.
This “SCHOOL SEVENS REPRESENTATIVE TEAM”, will be announced after the event and the ten names of the players will be displayed on rugby websites – Rugby 365 and Ou Grote.
Subsequently, each of these 10 selected players will be acknowledged with a Special Villager 2007 Sevens Medal.
Invited Teams
The competition includes predominantly southern suburb schools, and all the teams which played last year are again invited for 2007, to enjoy the opportunity of playing under the new match format. These young school rugby stars are some of the future talent of the Sevens game in Western Province and South Africa.
This year, we are pleased to invite 20 Schools. Each school will enter their top side. This will raise the quality of the matches played, as well as the enjoyment of the spectators. Teams will now surely have to play their hearts out from their first match, in order to make it to the Final.
The 20 schools invited to date are Table View, Primrose, Reddam, Bergvliet, Northerns RFC, Plumstead, Fish Hoek, SACS, Lagunya RFC, Bishops, Groote Schuur, Temperance RFC, Muizenberg, Pinelands, Jan van Riebeeck, Voortrekker, Tygerberg RFC, Rondebosch, Wynberg, Violets RFC.
Management Committee
Event Director: Miles O’Brien – (miles@jordan.co.za)
Event Manager: Nicholas Bryant – (nick@greenaways.co.za)
Villager club manager: Charles Sanderhoff – (villager@mweb.co.za)
Marketing Manager Sportsmans Warehouse: Marlene Marais
Sevens Committee: Gary Grant
From Miles O’Brien
Previous Winners
1969 Wynberg
1970 Rondebosch
1971 Plumstead
1972 Rondebosch
1973 SACS
1974 Wynberg
1975 Rondebosch
1976 Bishops
1977 Rondebosch
1978 Bishops
1979 Bishops
1980 Plumstead
1981 Bishops
1982 Bishops B
1983 Bishops
1984 Rondebosch
1985 Bishops
1986 Bishops
1987 Bishops
1988 Bishops
1989 Bishops
1990 Wynberg
1991 Rondebosch
1992 Bishops
1993 Bishops
1994 Wynberg
1995 Kings College, New Zealand
1996 Bishops
1997 Northerns RFC
1998 SACS
1999 Bishops
2000 Rondebosch
2001 Rondebosch
2002 Bishops
2003 Bishops
2004 Tygerberg RFC
2005 Bishops
2006: Bishops
