Melbourne push for World Sevens

Burgs: I think this is a fantastic idea and the Australian Rugby Community should be right behind the VRU encouraging and assisting them to see this happen if possible in the IRB calendar.
The right decision was made in the awarding of the new Super 14 team and I believe that Victoria and Australia are still a fair way off having the supporters and player depth to host a Super team in Melbourne.
However, this would give a great exposure of the code (albiet in the abreviated form) to the Victorian sporting community to start paving the way for the eventual Super team coming to town and to further encourage Victorians to take up our code.
At the latest count there around eight Victorian connected (ie, born or childhood or schooled etc) playing in Super 14 versus three I know of from Western Australia.
I'm as guilty as the average Sandgroper for bagging the Big V but in this instance I fully support it and would make an effort to go each year if they are successful.

Melbourne push for World Sevens

March 22, 2006

THE success of the rugby sevens tournament at the Commonwealth Games, which pulled a total of 150,000 fans over the two days of competition, has spurred calls for Melbourne to join the world sevens circuit.

A source close to the board of the Victorian Rugby Union said the expertise acquired during its unsuccessful campaign for a Super 14 team and the number of corporations ready to sponsor the code have put it in good shape for another tilt at staging top flight rugby.

The current world rugby sevens competition, run by the International Rugby Board (IRB), runs from late November to March and includes cities such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Wellington, Paris and London.

"The fact that there is not one in Australia tells me Melbourne has an opportunity," the source said.

"The question in the past was that the board didn't have the commercial capacity to put these things together but now we have that expertise."

The VRU underwent a major change in February with a new president, in sports and marketing executive Gary Gray, and new directors, including the chief financial officer of zinc miner Zinifex Ltd Tony Barnes.

In January, Melbourne staged a trial Super 14 match between the Crusaders and Western Australia's Force which drew 12,000.

"We need to gather excitement for the game and demonstrate to the Australian Rugby Union that we are commercially capable to run a rugby sevens tournament," the source said.

The staging of a sevens tournament would have to be before the AFL gets underway and the week between the completion of the NAB pre-season and the start of the AFL competition is favoured.

"The lesson learned from the Super 14 bid was that we weren't good enough, we weren't commercial enough," the source said.
"For the ARU to sit up and take notice we had to do things like the Crusader/Force event.

"We have to work with the state government to build a proposal to put to the IRB and then get endorsement from the ARU – that's the way to do it."

AAP

I was at the Force V Crusaders game in January and the support from Melbournites for rugby in general was huge. No doubt they were dissapointed they didn't get the S14 team, but most in the know appreciate that the team is where it is best suited here in WA. One chap I met had even put $300,000 of his own cash behind the Vic bid and he admitted that the Vics would not have come close to 20,000 members before the start of the season and that WA did deserve to win the bid. So the opportunity to host a sevens tournament would not only be great for the Vics, but all rugby supporters. I know after that match (Frice V Crusaders) in Melbourne I would go to a sevens comp there. The Vics really do know how to host sporting events from pre and post game entertainment, transport, venues, pubs etc. In this case and this case only....Go Vic.