IRB dip a toe into a women's sevens series

Well, this finally looks like it.

Still nothing on the IRB website, but with quotes from IRB Chairman, Bernard Lapasset its the most "official" leak yet. [It's now appeared].

In short, the Dubai Sevens will include an official women's sevens tournament with eight teams whose participation is being part-funded by the IRB. The eight teams are Australia, South Africa, USA, Canada, England, Brazil, China and Spain - so the same teams as appeared in the Brazilian leak last month, except Spain replace New Zealand who presumably refused to take part, despite presumably plenty of IRB pushing which is probably the main reason for the delay.

What it is not is a women's series. And that is no surprise as, with no France or Netherlands (to name but two), that would be a hard sell. A one-off tournament they could just about get away with.

That aside it is an important development. Australia are taking part at least - for the first time since the 2009 World Cup - and the IRB are part funding it (with the Dubai authorities helping out).

However, let's not get carried away here. Only the semi-finals and final will be in the main stadium (which is what has happened at for the past two or three years anyway, albeit with a mixture of official and unofficial teams) so - until it becomes a proper series with all of the world's leading sides taking part - its not so much of a leap forward as a very tentative shuffle in the right direction.