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All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens withdraw from World Series
By Alex McLeod
Neither of New Zealand's two national sevens teams, the All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens, will participate in next month's World Sevens Series tournaments in Spain.
Despite plans for both teams to compete in their first World Sevens Series tournaments since March 2020, the All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens have withdrawn from the Spain legs of the 2021-22 campaign due to New Zealand's MIQ restrictions.
The New Zealand Government has delayed the re-opening of its borders until at least late February, which has proved to be too big a hurdle to overcome for both sides given the Malaga and Seville tournaments kick-off at the end of this month.
Confirmation of New Zealand's withdrawal from both the men's and women's World Sevens Series tournaments comes on the same day that the 2022 All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens squads were announced.
New Zealand's withdrawal from those competitions also falls in the same year that both teams are scheduled to defend their Commonwealth Games title between July and August.
The Tokyo Olympics silver and gold medal winners will then defend their Sevens World Cup titles in Cape Town in September.
All Blacks Sevens head coach Clark Laidlaw has subsequently been left frustrated by the lack of international competition in the lead-up to this year's two major events.
“It’s frustrating not being able to travel at the moment but that is out of our control," he said via a statement.
"What we can control is what we do here each day, the players have come back in great spirits and now its time to crack on, we’ll be ready for whenever the borders open and we can travel."
New Zealand Rugby is now investigating domestic competition options for both the All Blacks Sevens and Black Ferns Sevens while the borders remain shut.
2022 All Blacks Sevens squad
Kurt Baker, Leroy Carter, Che Clark, Dylan Collier, Scott Curry, Sam Dickson, Rhodes Featherstone, Trael Joass, Andrew Knewstubb, Moses Leo, Ngarohi McGarvey-Black, Tim Mikkelson, Sione Molia, Tone Ng Shiu, Amanaki Nicole, Akuila Rokolisoa, Brady Rush, Roderick Solo, Caleb Tangitau, Kitiona Vai, Regan Ware, Joe Webber
2022 Black Ferns Sevens squad
Shakira Baker, Michaela Blyde, Kelly Brazier, Gayle Broughton, Theresa Fitzpatrick, Stacey Fluhler, Sarah Hirini, Jaz Hotham, Shiray Kaka, Jorja Millar, Tyla Nathan-Wong, Manaia Nuku, Risi Pouri-Lane, Alena Saili, Terina Te Tamaki, Kelsey Teneti, Ruby Tui, Niall Williams, Tenika Willison, Portia Woodman
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I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
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