{"id":329734,"date":"2026-03-14T18:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329734\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T18:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:34:22","slug":"tight-at-the-top-as-hsbc-svns-arrives-in-new-york-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/329734\/","title":{"rendered":"Tight at the top as HSBC SVNS arrives in New York for the first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spirits were high and could not be dampened at the captains photo at J Owen Grundy Park in the Big Apple against the backdrop of the the famous skyline as the HSBC SVNS Series<\/a> arrived in New York for the first time.<\/p>\n

Teams will be all business when they take to the pitch at Sports Illustrated Stadium at the weekend, where there is still plenty to be decided. In the women\u2019s competition, New Zealand extended their lead over Australia in the HSBC SVNS Series standings to six points last weekend in Vancouver, where they claimed their fourth tournament title in five events this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two superpowers of women\u2019s sevens have met in every final on the calendar to date, and will kick off in New York as strong favourites to meet in the showpiece for a sixth time with third-place USA looking to finish strongly in front of their home crowd.<\/p>\n

\"NY<\/p>\n

Photo: Alex Ho<\/p>\n

USA\u2019s Kristi Kirshe said rugby fans in New York could look forward to \u2018a party\u2019 when the HSBC SVNS kicks off at the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to grow the game in America, so I think this is a really cool opportunity,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing out some of the best athletes in the world this weekend and it\u2019s exciting to get to play on home soil – you get that little extra momentum from the crowd and we\u2019re really excited.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [fans] can expect a party – I mean, they\u2019re electric games. It\u2019s full contact, full sprint. It\u2019s really an exciting time, and it\u2019s a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Africa are locked in an epic battle at the top of the men\u2019s standings with Fiji, who hold the slimmest of advantages heading to the final round of the regular season as teams compete to be crowned HSBC SVNS Series 2026 Winners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Blitzboks, who have won three times on the Series in Cape Town, Perth and Vancouver are level on league points with the Pacific Islanders, who have two tournament wins of their own in Dubai and Singapore, and have finished in the top three in all five events on the HSBC SVNS to date since the opening round in the desert last December. They\u2019re separated by just two match points, a conversion across the five tournaments on the Series so far.<\/p>\n

The sides that finish top of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s standings heading into the three-tournament World Championship series, which kicks off in Hong Kong on 17 April, will be exempt from relegation to HSBC SVNS 2 at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Fans can join the party and purchase single and two-day ticket passes to HSBC SVNS New York here,<\/a><\/p>\n

All the action across the weekend will also be shown on Paramount+ in the US. Those further afield can find out where to watch here <\/a>with RugbyPass TV also streaming the Series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spirits were high and could not be dampened at the captains photo at J Owen Grundy Park in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,7364,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-329734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-text","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}