National 7s: Debate about the date

Apparently concerns have been expressed about the timing of the National Sevens - ie. generally Spring Bank Holiday weekend. I gather that there have been comments raised about clashes with exams, making the season too long, etc. etc.

Anyway Keeley Fathers (Competitions Office at RFUW) has been charged with doing a brief review of the situation. A bit late, one is tempted to suggest, being as the "final" calendar came out last month but it is good to see the RFUW responding to such concerns.

I have briefly replied already (see below) but clearly if anyone else wants to make any comments as well (especially if they differ substantially from mine) by all means do so. There is no closing date for comments given but I suspect that the timetable is short.

What I said was...

Just to record that at Letchworth there have never been any concerns expressed about the timing of the Junior National 7s.

As they are normally in the weekend at the start of the May half-term holiday concerns about exams would seem to be exaggerated. All by one (I think) of our U17 girls came to this years 7s - even though only 12 could actually play, and the same was the case the previous year too.

Secondly my fear - if you moved it - would be that you would would put on what would otherwise be a club fixture weekend - and there are precious few of those as it is.

It is also said that it makes the girls season is longer - but that is only true for the clubs that enter 7s. Those that do not do have a XVs season that is he conventional length.

Finally May is actually evolving into a self-contained Sevens season of its own for junior clubs - this year we had Dorking 7s on the 13th, Herts 7s on the 20th, and Nationals on the 26th. I would suggest you reinforce and support this development, because if you move the Nationals then what happens to Dorking and Herts?