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One of the most significant differences between sevens and five-a-side association football is that the full rugby park is played on and not a smaller court. This gives a lot more space for pace to work. It makes the game quick, dynamic and punishes even the smallest error harshly. It is then the pace players who flourish and the stoic, but slow forward is consigned to the role of spectator. This often means that tournaments are played in a cavalier and carnival atmosphere, which is infectious. The infection moved north to the Scottish cities, but the atmosphere whilst fun, never managed to catch the intimacy and fearsome rivalries of the Border circuit.
The international debut of the abbreviated game was in Argentina, where the first tournament was organised in Buenos Aires in 1921.
In truth, the game was seldom seen as anything more than a runabout, secondary to the full XV-a-side game. It is ironic that in England, despite the Middlesex sevens, played annually at Twickenham, the game had started to decline in the face of the increasing demands of the XV game, yet they still won the first Sevens world cup.
The internationalisation of the Sevens game started in 1976 with the establishment of a tournament in Hong Kong, one which would eventually revolutionise the game. Initially assistance was sought from the RFU, but with a lack of vision which is typical of British rugby, they did not respond.
So a tournament was started which involved sides mainly from the Pacific Rim. Cantabrians of New Zealand won the inaugural tournament, but very soon the competition involved representative sides of the major international nations and subsequently the Barbarian Football Club are the only non-international side to win the tournament.
Throughout the 1980s the tournament caught the rugby public's imagination, particularly the incredible rivalry which grew between the All Blacks and Fiji. The Pacific islanders rapidly became everyone's favourite underdogs and such was the popularity that the idea of a "world cup" came about. The Webb Ellis Trophy, the prize for the XV game, was only two tournaments old when the world of sevens came to Edinburgh to compete for the Melrose Cup.
