After Rio – what’s next?

After all the build-up and excitement of the Rio Olympics, there might be some expectations that things might calm down a little for a while. But the opposite is true.

It may be slightly lower key, but next weekend’sScandinavian Sevensin Copenhagen is a major event for the players of at least one nation. We featured attempts to form a rugby team in Icelandlast year, and this weekend they play in their first international tournament.  They have entered as “Reykjavik Raiders”, but as that is the only women’s club in Iceland it is, to all intents and purposes, Iceland’s national team. The 22-team event they have entered includes the Danish and Finnish national teams, plus club and invitational sides from the Poland, Sweden, Norway, Czech Republic and Scandinavia-based Fijiana.

Full scale international sevens also returns this weekend whenAsia’s U20 Championshipseries reaching its climax in Hong Kong on 12/13 August (Thailand won the first leg), while the senior series gets underway three weeks later on on 3-4 September in Hong Kong (followed by two more rounds in September and October). With Asia having two places in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 (Japan and one other) we can expect a real growth in interest in sevens across that continent.

Its Europe’s turn with theUnder 18 European Championshipin Vichy in France on 10/11 September. Despite its name this will be close to a world championship with the 13 European teams being joined by China, Canada and the United States. England are going for a hat-trick of wins.

Two weeks after that Europe’s top 12 international teams are back in action with the second leg of theEuropean Grand Prixin Malemort. Back in June Francewon the first legin Kazan, but that tournament will be no guide to this. Great Britain’s two teams are slated to play again, but the Great Britain Olympic programme is now over so it’s hard to see how that will come to be. In addition 2017 is World Cup year and many of the top players from France, Great Britain/England, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Ireland will be returning to XVs in preparation for Autumn Internationals and World Cup qualifiers, while Russia will be at the very least with a new coach and possibly a new team if the threatened funding cuts have become a reality. In short, this could hardly be more unpredictable.

The 2017 World Cup in Ireland next August (a year today, in fact) means that, despite all of the above, the focus for the next 12 months switches firmly towards fifteens.

This begins in just over a week when the stars of the next Olympics (or even World Cup 2021) will be on show at Trent College in Nottingham when Canada’s U20 XVs begin a three-match series against England U20s (18, 22 and 26 August). And while this is going on Germany return to test rugbyafter a six year gapwith a game against Switzerland in Heidelberg on 21stAugust.

That – and Switzerland’s match against the British Police in Geneva on 10thSeptember – is part of Swiss preparations for Europe’s World Cup qualifier, due to take place in Spain this autumn and expected  to also feature Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic (the winner plays off against Scotland). Expect some warm up games from the other participants too.

Even without the Qualifier, this autumn promises to be the busiest ever for women’s test rugby. It is highly probable that more games will be announced, but we already have an Australian tour of New Zealand in October, after which New Zealand travel to Europe for a four-way series against England, Ireland and Canada in Dublin and London in November and December. In addition England are also due to play France.

Sevens does not go away entirely, however. The 2016-17 World Series willl be starting in Dubai in December, followed by maybe five or more rounds in Sydney, Langford plus probably Japan, the United States (Atlanta/Las Vegas?) and France. And maybe a qualifier somewhere in the summer.

An Asia/Oceania World Cup fifteens qualifier is also due to take place early next year, with teams such as Fiji, Samoa, Hong Kong and Japan competing for two places in Ireland next year. And after all that there is the 2017 Six Nations, which promises to be a massive event with all six teams at full strength for the first time since 2014.

And we haven’t even begun to look at domestic rugby, which gets started in the next few weeks or - in he case of New Zealand’sFarah Palmer Cup- is already underway. Formerly the Women’s Provincial Championship, it again features nine teams who will compete over the next eight weeks with the aim of stopping Auckland from winning their 16thtitle since the competition began in 1999. After six rounds of pool games, the Semi-finals are due on 24thSeptember and the final on 1stOctober.

We'll be following it all!.