The 2014–15 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series was the third edition of the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series (formerly the IRB Women's Sevens World Series), an annual series of tournaments organised by World Rugby for women's national teams in rugby sevens. The series also doubled as an Olympic qualifier for the first time ever.

For the second time in the series' history, the number of events increased. The first series in 2012–13 featured four events. The 2013–14 series was initially announced with six events, but only five were actually scheduled and played. This season's series included six events.

As in previous seasons, the number of teams in each of the events was set at 12; however, the number of core teams that participate in all series events increased to 11.

Also for the first time, the women's series held a core team qualifying tournament at Hong Kong, similar to that held in the men's HSBC Sevens World Series.

The competition As in the case of the men's counterpart, the series winner was the team that collected the most points throughout the season, based on individual tournament finishes.

The number of "core teams" that participate in all series events increased to 11 for the 2014–15 series, up from six in the inaugural 2012–13 series and nine in 2013–14. The top seven finishers in the 2013–14 series were granted core team status for 2014–15:

Four more core teams were determined in a qualifying tournament:

Events 2014–15 Itinerary Leg Venue Dates Winner Dubai The Sevens, Dubai 4–5 December 2014 Brazil Arena Barueri, São Paulo 7–8 February 2015 United States Fifth Third Bank Stadium, Kennesaw, Georgia (Atlanta) 14–15 March 2015 Canada Westhills Stadium, Langford, British Columbia (Victoria) 18–19 April 2015 London Twickenham Stoop and Twickenham Stadium, London 15–16 May 2015 Netherlands NRCA Stadium, Amsterdam 22–23 May 2015

Qualifying tournament The core team qualifying tournament was held at Shek Kip Mei Stadium in Hong Kong on 12–13 September 2014.

The qualifier began with a single round-robin pool stage, with teams divided into three four-team pools. The top two teams from each pool, plus the top two third-place finishers, advanced to a knockout stage. The four quarterfinal winners qualified as core teams for 2014–15.

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Points schedule The season championship was to be determined by points earned in each tournament. The scoring system was the same used in the previous year's series.

Cup Winner - 20 Cup Runner Up - 18 3rd Place - 16 Cup Semi Finalist - 14 Plate Winner - 12 Plate Runner Up - 10 Winner 7th/8th play-off - 8 Loser 7th/8th play-off - 6 Bowl Winner - 4 Bowl Runner Up - 3 Winner 11th/12th play-off - 2 Loser 11th/12th play-off - 1

Standings Final standings for the 2014–15 series: + 2014–15 World Rugby Women's Sevens – Series III Pos. Dubai São Paulo Atlanta Langford London Amsterdam Pointstotal 20 20 20 20 16 12 108 16 16 16 10 18 20 96 18 18 12 8 20 18 944 12 12 8 16 12 16 765 8 10 18 12 14 14 766 14 14 10 14 10 10 727 6 8 14 18 8 6 608 10 4 4 6 4 4 329 2 3 3 4 6 8 2610 4 6 6 3 1 – 2011 1 2 2 2 3 3 1312 3 1 1 1 2 1 913 – – – – – 2 2

{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:92%;" |- !colspan=2| Legend |- style="line-height:18px; font-size:90%;" |colspan=2 align=center |Event Medalists |- |bgcolor=#FFD700|Gold |Event Champions |- |bgcolor=#C0C0C0|Silver |Event Runner-ups |- |bgcolor=#CD7F32|Bronze |Event Third place finishers |- style="line-height:18px; font-size:90%;" |colspan=2 align=center |Qualification for the 2015–16 World Rugby Women's Sevens Series |- |bgcolor=#cfc|Green |Core team in 2014–15 and re-qualified as a core team for the 2015–16 |- |No colour |Not a core team |- style="line-height:18px; font-size:90%;" |colspan=2 align=center |Qualification for the 2016 Olympic Sevens |- |colspan=2 style="border-left:3px solid #7cf;"| Automatically qualified (host country Brazil) |- |colspan=2 style="border-left:3px solid navy"| Qualified to the 2016 Olympic Sevens as one of the four highest placed eligible teams from the 2018–19 series.

By agreement between the three unions on the island of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales), England, as highest finisher among those nations in the 2013–14 series, represents Great Britain for the purposes of Olympic qualification.

Tournaments

Dubai

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup19–17 (3rd)Plate19–12 (7th)Bowl17–7 (11th)

São Paulo

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup17–10 (3rd)Plate14–5 (7th)Bowl17–12 (11th)

Atlanta

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup50–12 (3rd)Plate26–17 (7th)Bowl17–12 (11th)

Victoria

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup29–10 (3rd)Plate19–12 (7th)Bowl14–12 (11th)

London

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup20–17 (3rd)Plate19–0 (7th)Bowl31–0 (11th)

Amsterdam

EventWinnersScoreFinalistsSemifinalistsCup20–17 (3rd)Plate35–5 (7th) Bowl38–12 (11th)

References

External links