2005–06 World Sevens Series
The 2005–06 World Sevens Series was the seventh edition of the global circuit for men's national rugby sevens teams, run by the International Rugby Board since 1999-2000. The series was won by Fiji in the last event of the competition, ending New Zealand's 6-year run as series champions. Fiji needed to finish in fifth place or higher at the London Sevens to ensure that they would win the series ahead of England, but won the tournament handily with 54–14 victory over Samoa in the final. Itinerary. The most prestigious annual sevens event , the Hong Kong Sevens, returned to the series in 2005–06 after a one-year hiatus for the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens, which was held in Hong Kong in March 2005 and won by Fiji. The tournaments spanned the globe for the 2005–06 World Sevens Series, with the following eight events scheduled: Competition format. The return of the Hong Kong Sevens to the 2005–06 series added a 24-team tournament into the mix again, alongside the standard 16-team format used for all the over events. Regardless of the number of teams competing, the basic structure of each event was  broadly the same, beginning with the pool stage before progressing to a knockout stage to decide the tournament winners. Pool stage. For the pool stage, teams were divided into pools of four – either 6 pools of four teams in a 24-team event, or 4 pools of four teams in a 16-team event – and a round-robin was played within each pool. The points awarded for the pool matches were 3 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss. Where tie-breakers were required, the head-to-head result between the tied teams was used, followed  by the difference in points scored during tournament play. Knockout stage. The position achieved by each team in the pool stage determined its pathway in the knockout stage. Whether playing with 16 or 24 teams, however, only the top 8 sides from the pool stage could advance to the championship quarterfinals to compete for the tournament title. 16 team tournament. For a standard 16-team event, four trophies were contested during the knockout stage – in descending order of prestige: the Cup (whose winner became the tournament champion), Plate, Bowl and Shield. The format of the playoffs is described below 24 -team tournament. For the 24-team event, only three trophies were contested during the knockout stage: Cup, Plate and Bowl. The format of the playoffs with 8-team brackets is described below. Points schedules. The season championship was determined by the total points earned in all tournaments. The points schedules used for 2005–06 World Sevens Series were: Final standings. The points awarded to teams at each event, as well as the overall season totals, are shown in the table below. Points for the event winners are indicated in bold. A zero (0) is recorded in the event column where a  team played in a tournament but did not gain any points. A dash (–) is recorded in the event column if a team did not compete at a tournament. Notes: New Zealand, which had won the first six World Sevens Series, was mathematically eliminated from contention for the 2005–06 crown after the Singapore Sevens. Fiji's title was the first in the seven-year history of the competition to be won by a country other than New Zealand. The events. Dubai. The opening event of the season saw England defend their title, but not without a major fight. They had a  very tough semifinal against Samoa, surviving only via an injury-time try by Sevens newcomer Tom Varndell and conversion by Simon Amor after Samoa had been controversially reduced to six men in the final seconds. Facing England in the final was Fiji, which had a much tougher road to the final. In what would prove to be a harbinger of the season to come, they upset six-time defending series champion New Zealand in the quarterfinals. Fiji then defeated South Africa in the semifinals. The final proved to be a back-and-forth game, with each team seemingly having an  answer for the other's scores. However, Varndell, who was named player of the tournament, scored his third try of the final and 10th of the tournament with little more than a minute to go, giving England a lead Fiji could only reduce. South Africa. Here, Fiji scored their first win in an IRB Sevens event since their 2002 win in this very event. They defeated both New Zealand and England in the knockout phase to advance to the final. Their opponents were Argentina, who were upset by Wales in pool play, but went on to defeat New Zealand later  in pool play. Fiji took a 14–0 lead after five minutes of the final, but Argentina stormed back to take a 19–14 lead. William Ryder scored a try near the end to draw Fiji level, with the winning points provided by a conversion from Sevens legend and player-coach Waisale Serevi. The man-of-the-tournament award went to Serevi's successor as Fiji Sevens captain, Jone Daunivucu. New Zealand. This event made it clear to many observers that for the first time in the history of the World Sevens Series, New Zealand would not be the overall winner. While  New Zealand were unable to win on home soil in Wellington, Fiji advanced to their third final this season, defeating New Zealand in the semifinals. The Fijians won a nail-biting extra-time final over South Africa to take pole position in the series. United States. England stormed back into contention for the overall series crown here, destroying Fiji in the final. By this time, it became increasingly clear that the race for the title would be between the two Los Angeles finalists. Hong Kong. The 30th edition of arguably the biggest event in the Sevens version of the game  saw what "Planet-Rugby.com" called an "absolutely mesmerising" final. The first half belonged to England, who took advantage of a Fiji sin-binning to break open a tight game to take a 19–7 lead at the break. Serevi's men stormed back in the second half to level the score, and eventually took the lead on a Ryder try. However, they turned the ball over as the full-time siren sounded. England took advantage, with Ben Gollings scoring a try to tie the match and converting to win. Singapore. This event saw a rematch of the Hong Kong final, with Fiji  scoring a comfortable win this time, despite missing two key players—Danivucu to a three-month disciplinary ban for biting Varndell in the Hong Kong final, and Epeli Dranivasa to a broken arm suffered in the same match. New Zealand were officially eliminated from contention for the series crown, crashing out in the Cup quarterfinals to Argentina and losing in the Plate semifinals to Samoa. Fiji placed themselves in pole position to claim the series crown; if they made the finals in Paris and England, they would win the series title no matter what England did. Paris. Going into Paris , second-place England knew they had to finish at least two spots ahead of Fiji in one of the remaining two tournaments to win the overall title. England caught a major break when the hosts, France, stunned Fiji 22–21 in the Cup quarterfinals, knocking them into the Plate competition. However, England could not take advantage of the upset, crashing out of the Cup at the same stage to Australia, 29–17. Fiji went on to win the Plate and extend their lead over England for the overall crown. In the meantime, South Africa went on to win the Paris crown. In  the final, they avenged a loss to Samoa in pool play, with Rayno Benjamin and Danwell Dimas scoring two tries apiece. The results here all but assured Fiji the overall crown. England could only win the 2005-06 series if they won the final event at Twickenham and Fiji lost in or before the Plate semifinals. London. The first day saw Fiji, South Africa and New Zealand sweep through pool play unbeaten. The most competitive pool was Pool B, featuring the hosts England. The pool was tightly contested, with England neck-and-neck with Australia and surprise package Kenya. In  a major shocker, Kenya easily defeated Australia 26–7. Although England would lose the day's final match 24–19 to Australia, they topped the pool on points difference, with Kenya finishing second. On Day 2, Fiji clinched the overall series crown by defeating Kenya 33–14 in the Cup quarterfinals. They went on to crush South Pacific rivals Samoa 54–14 for the London crown. England held off South Africa for second place, advancing to the Cup semifinals while South Africa could only advance to the Plate final, in which they beat Kenya. The Bowl competition went especially against form. In the first  semifinal, Portugal surprised Scotland 24–12. The second saw an even more shocking result, as Russia used a hat trick from Igor Galinovskiy to stun Australia 21–5. Portugal won the final 45–0.