Second Women's IRB Sevens to be announced

The second official IRB Women's Sevens will take place in Hong Kong between 23rd and 25th March.

There does not seem to have been any official announcement - yet - but Netherlands today announced that they have been invited to take part, which implies some changes to the structure of the tournament - probably to 12 teams - which is not a problem as the women's Hong Kong Sevens normally 12 or more teams.

Netherlands also announced that they have been invited to play in the London Sevens which is "almost sorted". We also know that Canada and France are intending to be there, so another 12 or more team event is presumably planned.

When the official announcement will be made is not yet known - at a guess they want to announce both events together - but clearly the IRB are making sure that all of the teams they want are ready to go when they do the big reveal.

If it is a 12 team event then ten of the teams are fairly obvious - Canada, England, Australia, Spain, Brazil, China, USA, South Africa, France, Netherlands. Quite who the others might be is more of a guess, but logically they would be "local" teams like Japan or maybe Fiji in Hong Kong, and maybe Wales and Scotland in London?