Emotion, speed, strength and dexterity are characteristics appreciated by most sports lovers and will be in evidence at the Algarve Sevens, European rugby sevens tournament, which will take place today and tomorrow, Saturday at the Estádio Algarve. Over two days, 12 of the best European teams, including the Portuguese, will compete for five spots in the World Championship of this sport, which will be played in Russia in 2013. Games start at 17 pm.
Sevens Rugby is a variation of 15 Rugby, the most popular form of this sport. In tournaments with teams of seven players, Portugal has achieved excellent results at European level. As fundamental differences, the two strands have, from the outset, the number of players on the field, seven as the name indicates, but also the way of playing, since the field has exactly the same dimensions for less than half of the players, but it only lasts 14 minutes (the 15 lasts 50 minutes).
The director of the national team coach Tomaz Morais, the director of competitions of the Portuguese rugby federation Mário Costa and the representative of the rugby club of the University of Algarve Rui Santos were guests of this week's radio program impressions, jointly organized by Sul Informação and by Rádio Universitária do Algarve RUA FM. The full interview can be heard tomorrow at noon on 102.7 FM or on RUA FM website.
“Rugby sevens is much easier to understand. I even leave a story for the mothers here,” said Tomaz Morais. “My mother had two kids at home who were crazy about rugby and who showed up every day with their gear full of mud or dust. And she didn't understand what the game was for, she had a hard time understanding the logic. One day he went to see a Sevens tournament and said: oh, this is a great game!», said the director of the tournament.
Maybe that's why this is a sport with more and more fans in Portugal and around the world. "It's a faster and more intense game, where individual error pays much more," he illustrated. There are other nuances in relation to the modality with 15 players, such as the profile of the players, which has to be more balanced in terms of strength, or weight, speed and agility. "Ordered formations, which in rugby 15 have seven players from each team, here only have three, so they are simplified," said Tomaz Morais.
This sport had, moreover, a great increase in the number of practitioners, particularly after the good performance of the national team, nicknamed «Os Lobos», in the 2007 World Cup. «A week ago we passed the barrier of 100 thousand and one hundred players in Portugal. This is 50 percent more than in 2003,” he revealed.
Families are encouraged to participate in the party
The idea of the organizers of this qualifying competition for the World Cup is for people to travel to the stadium in the Algarve «as a family», to celebrate. Ticket prices – 5 euros a day and 7,5 euros for two days – invite this, with the particularity that children under 16 do not pay to enter.
The excitement will be on and off the pitch, with various activities planned, including entertainment outside the Stadium, in a square with inflatables, and entertainment, music and some surprises inside. Drinks will also be sold inside the stadium, whose revenue will revert to the Rugby Club de Loulé.
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