Fiji and New Zealand win HSBC SVNS

Fiji men and New Zealand women claimed the HSBC SVNS Singapore titles on Sunday at the sixth and final regular season round of HSBC SVNS 2025, which saw New Zealand women and Argentina men retain their titles as SVNS League Winners following results on Saturday at Singapore National Stadium.

Double Olympic champions Fiji had to dig deep to overturn a half time deficit against an indomitable Kenya side whose only previous Series title came in Singapore in 2016. Kenya took a first half lead through Nygel Pettersan Amatisa, but a second half hattrick of tries with a brace from Viwa Naduvalo and one from Rauto Vakadranu turned to final in Fiji’s favour and they ran out 21-12 winners despite a late consolation try from Kenya’s William Mwanji Indakalu.

HSBC Player of the Final Viwa Naduvalo said: “Thanks to my teammates for giving 100% effort. We ended up with the win.”

Fiji’s Tira Wilag Pattersoni said: “The Kenyan team was coming very hard, they are a good side and very physical. It was so tough.”

New Zealand were quickest out of the blocks in an exciting women’s final with first half tries from Michaela Brake and Risi Pouri-Lane. Australia replied through the unstoppable Maddison Levi before the break but further second half tries from Jazmin Felix-Hotham, Kelsey Teneti and a second for Brake saw New Zealand finish comfortable 31-7 winners.

HSBC Player of the Final Risi Pouri-Lane said: “It’s been an awesome couple of weeks for us. They (Australia) are full of talent and the girls are still young.It is awesome to come up against them because we know they are always going to bring it to us.”

Winning captain Sarah Hirini said she was “stoked for this group. Everyone knows when you win the title and win the tournament at the same time it’s an even greater feeling,” Hirini added. “We all love what we do. We know how grateful we are to be in this position.”

Brake explained what is behind their winning mentality: “When it comes to training it’s almost like we’re playing against another country and every training that we do at home and we try to continue that pressure and competitive each day. When it comes playing on the World Series we bring that same competitive nature against other countries.”

Australia’s Maddison Levi continued her record breaking form since being named World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year 2024 as the 22 year old became the fastest woman to surpass 200 tries, ending the weekend with 203 scores to her name including one in the final, which took her past Charlotte Caslick as Australia’s top try scorer in finals with 15.

After three successive tournament victories Argentina’s men had to settle for bronze in Singapore, which they secured thanks to a 33-14 victory over Spain, coming back from two tries down. Canada claimed the women’s bronze with a convincing 21-5 defeat of France.

The women’s semi-finals were both one-sided affairs as Australia thrashed Olympic silver medallists Canada 45-7 while New Zealand swept aside France by a 40-14 scoreline.

To reach their first final since Vancouver 2021, Kenya saw off a second half Spanish fightback to record a hard earned 12-5 and delight their vocal contingent of fans in the large finals day crowd inside the 55,000 capacity Singapore National Stadium.

Fiji overcame SVNS League Winners Argentina 33-24 in a thrilling and action-packed semi-final to book their place in the cup final.

The final HSBC SVNS 2025 standings see Argentina finish as men’s league winners for the second successive year with 104 points, finishing 8 and 16 points ahead of Fiji and the consistently impressive Spain in second and third respectively.

In the women’s standings New Zealand’s Black Ferns Sevens retained their league winners title with116 points having won four of the six rounds. They finished with a ten point margin over rivals Australia in second place. France finished third on 80 points with Olympic silver medallists Canada in fourth and Japan in fifth position.

Attention now turns to the highly anticipated HSBC SVNS World Championship 2025 in Los Angeles on 3-4 May. The winner-takes-all season finale takes place in the Dignity Health Sports Park – the LA 2028 Olympic venue for rugby sevens – and features the top eight ranked men’s and women’s teams competing to be crowned HSBC SVNS 2025 Champions.

The pools, which are based on rankings, were confirmed at the conclusion of the event in Singapore. The World Championship competition format involves two pools of four teams each with the top two teams in each pool reaching the semi-finals.

Women’s pool A see Olympic champions New Zealand together with silver medallists Canada, as well as Japan and Great Britain. Australia are in pool B with France, the hosts and Olympic bronze medallists USA and Fiji.

In men’s pool A SVNS league winners Argentina will face South Africa, Olympic champions France and Great Britain. Singapore victors Fiji are in pool B with Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Two-time Rugby World Cup winner and three-time World Rugby Player of the Year Dan Carter was in attendance in Singapore where he commented on the upcoming HSBC SVNS World Championship event: “I like it. In the rugby calendar it’s nice to have something to work towards and then high-pressure situations. You see it in a lot of other sports as well; you compete in a series and then you have your champion at the end and then you go into a finals series. It just brings that element of edge and excitement and things can happen.

“Look at last year, how dominant Argentina was throughout the Series and then France, they just came and were victorious in Madrid. Once again, Argentina have dominated and it doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to go to LA and win. It’s all on the line and I’m really enjoying the format of the Series.”

The teams placed ninth to twelfth in the HSBC SVNS 2025 rankings will also be in action in Los Angeles, joining the top four ranked teams from the World Rugby HSBC Sevens Challenger in the Play Off competition.

The third and final round of the Challenger takes place in Krakow, Poland on 11-12 April. The eight men’s teams competing in Krakow are Germany, Canada, Portugal, Chile, Samoa, Japan, Madagascar and Tonga. The women’s teams are Kenya, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, Thailand, Czechia, Poland and Belgium.