Nickname(s) | All Blacks Sevens |
---|---|
Emblem | Silver fern |
Union | New Zealand Rugby Union |
Head coach | Clark Laidlaw |
Captain | Scott Curry |
Top scorer | Tomasi Cama (2026) |
Top try scorer | Tim Mikkelson (168) |
Home stadium | Westpac Stadium |
Rugby World Cup Sevens | |
Appearances | 6 (First in 1993) |
Best result | Champions (2001, 2013) |
The New Zealand national rugby sevens team represents New Zealand in rugby sevens and competes in the World Rugby Sevens Series, Rugby World Cup Sevens, Summer Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games.
The team has been officially known as the All Blacks Sevens since 1 June 2012.
The team played for the first time at the 1973 International Seven-A-Side Tournament. In 1983 it first entered the Hong Kong Sevens, where it has been champion 10 times and runner-up another 10 times.
The team has won twelve of the fifteen IRB Sevens World Series events. Since 2000 when the series first started, the only times they have not won the series were in 2006 when Fiji were crowned champions, 2009 won by South Africa, 2010 when they came second to Samoa and 2015/2016 when Fiji won the series back to back.The team has won 47 tournaments out of 122 held.
In the 2006–07 series, it was left until the last round at Murrayfield, Edinburgh, to find out who would win. If Fiji had won their quarter-final against Wales then they would have won the series but they lost 21–14. This meant that New Zealand needed to win the final against Samoa to win the title. With a convincing six tries to one, 34–5 scoreline, they did just that and were crowned champions.
The 2007–08 series saw New Zealand set several records. They became the first team in the nine-year history of the IRB Sevens to have won the first four events of a season, having won the Dubai, South Africa, Wellington and USA tournaments. During the USA Sevens, they broke their own record, set in 2001 and 2002, for most consecutive match wins in the IRB Sevens. The team extended their streak of tournaments won to the first five of the season, and a record seven overall, by defeating South Africa in the final of the 2008 Hong Kong Sevens.