24-05-2025
Tumultuous time for 7s as IRFU stick by decision to axe men's team
THE IRELAND MEN's sevens team were scheduled to play Czechia, Belgium and Georgia in the beautiful seaside town of Makarska in Croatia in a few weeks.
That's where the first leg of the Rugby Europe Sevens Championship takes place, with the second leg to follow in Hamburg, Germany on the last weekend of June.
Ireland won the European series in 2023 and were runners-up to France last year. This competition might not grab many headlines, but it's part of the proud record that Ireland have put together over the past decade.
But sadly, though the players' contracts run until the end of the year, it looks unlikely that Ireland will be there in Makarska for what was supposed to be the end point of their 2024/25 season. Instead, they're facing up to the end of their professional sevens careers.
It's only eight days since confirmation of that landed from the IRFU. The players and staff who are losing their jobs are still reeling.
They met with IRFU performance director David Humphreys on Monday to discuss the axing of the programme. Some left that meeting frustrated and feeling like questions remain unanswered, even if it's welcome that they will be paid until the end of the year.
The IRFU has stuck firmly to its line that this is a financially driven decision amid challenging times in sevens. They felt others would follow their lead. Just yesterday, Great Britain scrapped its full-time men's and women's sevens programme.
The British teams will still be on the SVNS Series, but will only meet up for training camps before each competition.
There were separate England, Wales, and Scotland sevens teams up until 2023 when they combined as Great Britain due to funding issues. Now, the RFU, WRU, and Scottish Rugby are cutting back again due to 'continuing financial pressures associated with the sevens game and ongoing explorations as to the role the format can continue to play in player development systems.'
That language is familiar to anyone who has been following this story in Ireland.
It's not just sevens where unions are feeling the pinch. The 15s game faces big financial challenges. Costs have risen, revenues haven't. The worry is that revenues won't be rising any time soon. Indeed, some TV rights deals are going backwards.
It's understood that the IRFU spent around €6 million on the men's sevens programme in the last Olympic cycle leading to the 2024 Games.
That's a gross spend figure and there has been money coming in each year – €350,000 from World Rugby, €300,000 from Sport Ireland, as well as sponsorship from TritonLake and Blackrock Expert Services – but the men's sevens programme was loss-making.
Ireland after qualifying for the Olympics. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
That is true of most programmes in Irish rugby. The men's national 15s team is pretty much the only side making money for the IRFU. 80% of the union's revenue still comes from that source. Andy Farrell's Ireland team is the lifeblood of the sport on these shores, so their success is the absolute priority.
As the IRFU cuts budgets in several places – it's believed the men's U20 programme has had to tighten its belt, for example – the men's sevens team is the one that has been dealt a fatal blow.
It's understood that the IRFU will save more than €500,000 per season by taking this measure. It might not seem like a transformative amount in the grand scheme of things, but the union has taken a long-term view that this can be better used elsewhere.
Humphreys has been the perceived villain here because the programme has been axed less than a year after he took over from staunch sevens advocate Nucifora, who was the key driver in relaunching the programme and running it for the past decade. Nucifora is now working with Scottish Rugby, who we know are also cutting back in sevens.
Humphreys played sevens for Ireland at the 1997 World Cup and spoke positively about the code when he was in the process of taking over from Nucifora. But it seems that reality has bitten.
It appears that the IRFU had no long-term plan for sevens beyond last year. The men's programme has been running since 2015 but it seems there was no thought for life after the 2024 Olympics, which was always likely to be a point of transition. That there was no strategy beyond that point is damning.
Advertisement
Plotting for long-term success in sevens could have included implementing some sort of sevens pathway underneath the national teams, but that wasn't the case.
The IRFU can blame World Rugby for dragging out confirmation of its future plans for sevens, but other nations simply got on with it after the Olympics and maintained their high standards. The Irish men were sent out on the SVNS Series with squads that lacked experience and sometimes even included injured players.
Those involved in this 2024/25 campaign did their utmost to represent Ireland with pride, but felt a lack of support from their union. Even now, members of the set-up believe this decision to shut the programme down wouldn't hurt as much if there had been more care shown this season and over the past week.
It rankled that the public confirmation came suddenly on Wednesday evening last week. Humphreys called the players before the news was confirmed, but it all happened very quickly and the final statement was viewed as cold. Anyone losing their job would want to be informed face-to-face.
The calls from ex-Ireland players to reverse the decision have fallen on deaf ears, while a group of parents of those ex-players and some current players haven't heard back from the IRFU after they expressed their frustrations in a letter addressed to Humphreys.
Those parties want the IRFU to publish the two reviews that led to the men's programme being axed, but that is unlikely. One was carried out by World Rugby to look at the SVNS Series, so it isn't the IRFU's to share. The other was done by Portas, a sports management consultancy, for the IRFU to assess the financial state of the rugby. It is said to include confidential details that relate to other nations, not just Ireland.
Jordan Conroy has been lethal for Ireland 7s. Travis Hayto / INPHO Travis Hayto / INPHO / INPHO
The one review that it seems Ireland players and staff were involved in was the post-Olympics review into their performances in Paris.
The most genuine hope those demanding a u-turn had was that Sport Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland [OFI] would protest, given that an Irish medal contender has now been removed from the Olympics mix, but that hasn't quite been the case. It seems that both of those bodies could see this coming.
Sport Ireland said the decision was 'disappointing but not surprising as there is a wider global context in terms of the sevens game,' while the OFI has also expressed its disappointment following a board meeting to discuss the issue on Wednesday.
'The removal of a high performance programme from the Irish Olympic team that has received significant tax payers investment through Sport Ireland and enjoyed good success is something that the OFI is disappointed in,' said an OFI spokesperson.
The OFI added that it is determined that the Irish women's sevens team will continue to strive for Olympic qualification and to chase medals for Ireland.
As they shed the men's sevens programme, the IRFU's key focuses now under Humphreys appear to be ensuring the Ireland 15s men's team remain strong, helping Connacht, Munster, and Ulster to close the gap to Leinster, as well as international women's 15s rugby.
The drop-off in 'the other three' provinces has caused alarm. The concern is that Munster, Ulster, and Connacht aren't competing for trophies, but also that their pathways aren't delivering enough high-quality players into the Ireland squad. This is the thing that will cause most sleepless nights for Humphreys.
It's why there will be another change to the national player contracting model, meaning the provinces must contribute 40% of 'central contracts' from their provincial salary budget from next year. This will mainly come from Leinster, who have the bulk of nationally-contracted players, and the money will be redirected into the Munster, Connacht, and Ulster player development pathways.
The IRFU believes that stronger funding towards coaching and support for teenage players in schools and clubs across Ulster, Connacht, and Munster will have a long-term pay-off. It might take five or 10 years to truly be felt.
So even if the savings each season from dropping the men's sevens programme won't be vast, the IRFU thinks the additional money will be better spent on that project, and on women's rugby.
'What we're trying to do is identify things we don't need to do anymore to free up resources to do the things we really want,' said Kevin Potts in an interview with the Sunday Independent last weekend.
'For example, to accelerate our women's game and to ensure that our national men's team is competing at the very highest level.'
The IRFU's annual spend on women's rugby has risen drastically in recent years.
IRFU performance director David Humphreys. Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO
It stood at €3.1 million per season in 2021. Four years on, it's around €9 million per season.
2021 was when the IRFU came under intense scrutiny after a large group of women's players wrote to the Irish government to highlight 'multiple cycles of substandard commitment from the union.'
The IRFU's spend on women's rugby has tripled in the four years since, and the union has a goal of having four full-time contracted provincial teams by 2028, which will require further investment.
It's understood the women's game is currently bringing in just over €2 million per season and 'is not going to be profitable any time soon,' according to IRFU chief financial officer Thelma O'Driscoll, speaking last November.
The women's sevens programme has survived and the IRFU insists that's a long-term decision because there are fewer development pathways in women's rugby.
However, the increased focus on the 15s team in this World Cup year means the women's sevens team also endured a miserable season as key players went on 15s duty. The Ireland women's sevens were relegated from the SVNS Series, so will have to start again down a couple of levels. That, in turn, means players in the sevens team won't be exposed to as high a standard of competition as before.
But as they said last week, the IRFU doesn't believe the men's sevens programme is a genuine pathway for professional 15s players. There have been success stories, of course, but the union seemingly feels that many of those who excelled at sevens, such as Hugo Keenan, had already shown their potential in 15s and could have kicked on anyway.
There seems to be a sense that there isn't a strong correlation between the sevens and 15s games, and that only outside backs from 15s can truly shine in the seven-player code, not forwards.
It's understood that the provinces have not been supportive of the sevens programme over the past decade. They would rather retain their academy players in order to cover injuries and give them chances in professional 15s when the time is right.
The way the IRFU sees it, there have been very few players picked up by the Ireland sevens programme having been off their 15s radar, and then ended up progressing into the 15s game.
Cormac Izuchukwu is the prime example, having come into the Irish system from the wilderness of Scottish club rugby, into the Ireland sevens and onto Ulster and his Ireland 15s cap. Even at that, Izuchukwu wasn't with the sevens for long.
Zac Ward had played underage rugby for Ulster and then featured for Ulster A after returning home from Hartpury College, but almost certainly wouldn't now have a three-year deal in Ulster if it wasn't for his stunning impact at the Olympics last year.
Still, Humphreys and co evidently feel that a couple of positive examples from 10 years of the programme aren't cause for investing further into this next four-year cycle before the 2028 Olympics.
It is jarring that the IRFU seem to have shut down all possibility of the men's sevens team being brought back together to make a late run at the 2028 Games in LA. Ireland could restart in 2027 and qualify for the Olympics through Rugby Europe competitions. This is something that the current players asked Humphreys about at their meeting.
The Ireland women's team were relegated from the SVNS Series this season. Travis Hayto / INPHO Travis Hayto / INPHO / INPHO
And this is the unique thing about this case. The Olympics opened its doors to rugby. The sevens in Paris last year was wonderful. The Irish men weren't far off medalling. It seems a shame to give up on the prospect of doing so in the future.
As things stand, LA 2028 is not on the table because the IRFU don't want to give false hope to the players who now have to move on, whether in rugby or outside it.
The IRFU believes that other unions will follow suit and either axe their sevens programmes or notably curtail investment into the seven-player code, as Great Britain have now done.
World Rugby hopes that a slimmed-down SVNS Series can stem the alarming financial situation, with the governing body having reportedly made annual losses of €25 million since centralising the series in 2023.
But the mood around sevens is one of doom and gloom. Some people are of the view that the seven-player code should break away from World Rugby and its unions now that it's part of the Olympics. Nucifora is among them.
For that to work, or for World Rugby's series to be saved, sevens needs people to support it on TV and in person in a way that simply hasn't been happening in recent years. Having amazing peaks every four years at the Olympics won't be enough.
Bringing the sevens show on the road around the world is very costly, so a breakaway rugby sevens revolution would need generous backers. Something needs to change soon because the road sevens is on at the moment appears to have an unhappy ending.
