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With Team USA’s victory on home soil giving them a five-point cushion on top of the 2018-19 World Rugby Sevens Series standings at the halfway point, the teams head north for the Vancouver Sevens tournament this weekend.
While the tournament won’t be broadcast on television anywhere in the US, you can still watch a live stream of every match on your computer, phone or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN (no cable required) that has exclusive coverage to dozens of sporting events, including every leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
You can start a free 7-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the entire Vancouver Sevens tournament on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
2019 HSBC Vancouver Sevens Preview
Halfway through the 2018-19 season, the biggest story continues to be Team USA.
It’s not as though the Americans weren’t expected to compete–they’ve finished fifth or sixth in each of the last four seasons, and they took fifth at the World Cup in San Francisco last year–but the level of their success has been both unexpected and unprecedented.
Through five tournaments, Team USA has appeared in all five finals. It took them a while to break completely through, as they settled for silver in each of the first four before taking down Samoa, 27-0, in Las Vegas last weekend, but that kind of consistency has them at 98 points. They’re five points ahead of defending World Cup champions New Zealand, 14 points clear of Fiji and 25 up on England. Unless they forget to show up over the last half of the season, they’ve assured themselves a top-four position, which guarantees a spot in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“It’s amazing,” forward Ben Pinkelman said after the win over Samoa last weekend. “This is the exact moment we wanted. We had it last year and we didn’t want anything more than to be right back here, to be surrounded by everyone storming the field. It’s a great feeling.”
In Vancouver this weekend, Team USA–which finished fourth in Canada last year after losing to Kenya in the semifinals and again to South Africa in the bronze medal match–will be in Pool A along with South Africa, Chile and Wales. South Africa, the two-time defending World Series champions, are currently in fifth.
Fiji, the defending Canada Sevens champions, have finished fourth and sixth the last two tournaments after winning in both Cape Town and Hamilton. Down to third and quickly falling away from USA and New Zealand, they now face a potentially dangerous Pool B with Samoa (who are fresh off a Cup Final appearance in Las Vegas), Kenya (who finished second here last year) and the hosts Canada.
New Zealand, meanwhile, tops Pool C along with Australia, Spain and France. The Australians are in sixth place and 11 points behind fourth-place England, so they’ll have to start stringing together some semifinal appearances if they want to make a run at that automatic Olympic qualifying spot.
Pool D features Argentina, England, Scotland and Japan. Argentina are coming off their best performance of the season, as they knocked off the Americans, 26-24, in pool play–they were the only team to beat the eventual champions–and took fourth overall.