{"id":22648,"date":"2025-07-26T03:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22648\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T03:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:19:10","slug":"inside-rugbys-bold-new-sevens-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22648\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside rugby\u2019s bold new sevens league"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In its inaugural season, the Rugby Premier League (RPL) in India<\/a> invited players from across the globe to compete alongside homegrown Indian talent, forming a new experiment in the world of sevens.<\/p>\n

Elias Hancock, an experienced Canadian sevens player, was keen to get involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat made me want to get involved was just the fact that something like this has never been done before. The RPL is bringing people like international players from all over the world together and mixing them up with domestic Indian players,\u201d Hancock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo having not much going on in June, I figured it would be a really cool opportunity to come over and gain some more international experience and to be a part of this inaugural year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Hawies Fourie on selection headache<\/p>\n

\"VideoHawies Fourie on selection headache<\/p>\n

Growing rugby culture<\/p>\n

One of the RPL\u2019s most ambitious missions has been to fuse elite level rugby knowledge with India\u2019s rapidly growing rugby culture. While there\u2019s an inevitable learning curve, Hancock sees real potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cMixing international rugby stars with local talent is really big for developing the domestic talent in India.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust getting to play alongside them, everybody\u2019s experience level is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does slow down the pace of the game a little, especially in the training camp weeks, because you\u2019re doing more teaching than actually playing at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn field, it\u2019s a bit slower just because everybody\u2019s rugby knowledge and skills are at different levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, it\u2019s been huge and the country of India\u2019s rugby talent is going to grow significantly. I\u2019m quite excited for that and looking forward to seeing how it continues to grow and evolve in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a really good baseline of talent and some really skilled players that I think has caught a lot of people off guard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing with and against familiar international names added another dimension to the experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun and It was probably the biggest pull for me at least, was to get to live and play alongside these other international players that I\u2019ve been lucky enough to play against.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo now get to play with them and for them as players to coaches \u2013 it\u2019s been an amazing experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that it can continue to grow and we can carry on growing the player pool. You\u2019re always friendly with these guys you\u2019ve played against over the years. But at the end of the day, they\u2019ve always been my opponents not my teammates. So this has been a really unique experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

India\u2019s future in rugby \u2013 a new generation<\/p>\n

As someone who\u2019s seen packed stadiums and empty ones alike Hancock is keenly aware of the power of fans. In Mumbai, the RPL\u2019s energy was unmistakable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely think the RPL has the potential to hook new fans. Being at the stadium every night you see the crowds continuing to grow and especially the young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of kids at the games and they\u2019ve all been really into it and that\u2019s how you\u2019re going to inspire the next generation of rugby athletes in the world, especially with India having such a large population.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you get a quarter of the kids playing, that would be massive for the sport. Mumbai is such a big hub and it\u2019s a big sports city, so the fans are super passionate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying for Mumbai in particular has been really cool because all the support has been amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would definitely encourage other top level sevens players to explore leagues like this outside the usual circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting idea to continue to try to expand leagues like this, especially if it\u2019s going to bring some life back into sevens.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the crowds that were impressive. The organisational side of the RPL left an impression too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organisations have taken great care of the players in terms of whether its compensation, food, hotels, the flights, everything has been very well organised.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us had never been to India before, so I think that was also a big pulling factor. The RPL has compensated the players so well.<\/p>\n

Final thoughts<\/p>\n

The RPL might not be the next HSBC circuit stop yet, but for players like Elias Hancock it represents something the sevens world desperately needs, which is momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cSevens is such a fun, exciting game. We just need to give it a platform. The RPL is doing that and I\u2019m glad to have been part of the first chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As rugby eyes new frontiers it\u2019s in places like Mumbai where the game\u2019s future might be forged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In its inaugural season, the Rugby Premier League (RPL) in India invited players from across the globe to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-22648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}