Vegas to stage Sevens event

Las Vegas will host the United States leg of the International Rugby Board World Sevens Series from next year.

For the past five years, the USA tournament has been held in Los Angeles and San Diego but organisers have opted to take it to Las Vegas next February 13 and 14.

“Vegas is about attracting people with their fun, their parties, their concerts and events and they saw rugby as a group of people globally who tour ... a group of people that come together in celebration,” USA Sevens tournament director Dan Lyle said.

“We had a great time in San Diego. We had a great location and a great facility but I would say that we’ve had a five-fold increase in interest both domestically and internationally as we’ve moved to Vegas.”

Last week rugby sevens was voted onto the programme for the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games.

This season’s IRB World Series kicks off in Dubai on December 4 and 5 and shifts to South Africa the following weekend.

The third leg, one of the liveliest events on the sevens calendar, takes place in Wellington in early February before the party heads to Las Vegas.

The remaining tournaments are in Australia, Hong Kong, England and Scotland.

New Zealand have dominated the World Series winning eight titles under coach Gordon Tietjens but they lost out to South Africa last time round.

Tietjens has yet to decide on the squad he will take to Dubai and South Africa as he must wait to see who the Super 14 coaches select in their squads for next year to find out which players will be available to him.

“I’ll be looking at a training squad going into camp in November,” he said.