Springboks’ Bryan Habana becomes latest lured to sevens by Olympic dream

Paul Radley reports on Bryan Habana's decision to join South Arica's seven sides, part of a wave of star names flocking to the shorter format in hopes of reaching the 2016 Rio Olympics.

South Africa rugby star Bryan Habana shown during a practice last week before South Africa played Argentina in the Rugby World Cup third place play-off. Adam Davy / PA / AP / October 29, 2015

DUBAI // The Dubai Rugby Sevens has never required household names to be playing for it to sell tickets, but it might be getting a few this season just for good measure.

After the four-year World Cup cycle in XVs ended with New Zealand’s victory at Twickenham at the weekend, a number of rugby’s leading players have now switched their attention to the Olympic Games instead.

Sevens will make its debut in Rio de Janeiro next year, and the prospect of a medal is clearly proving enticing.

Liam Messam and Sonny Bill Williams were the two biggest name All Blacks to make themselves available for sevens duty earlier this year. Both have subsequently become World Cup winners in the XVs game.

This week, the announcement of Quade Cooper’s move from Queensland’s Reds to Toulon in France was delayed by contractual negotiations over his desire to make the Australia squad for Rio.

And on Wednesday Bryan Habana, the joint leading try-scorer in the history of World Cups, was announced as part of the South Africa sevens training squad.

Habana is also contracted to Toulon, but, like Cooper, is expected to be released to play in the sevens series when selected.

Players will have to play four of the series’ 12 tournaments to be in contention for Olympic selection. Whether many of them will make the cut in time for the UAE’s National Day weekend is debatable.

Given the month turnaround for the World Cup stars, Dubai might realistically be too soon for them to be phased in to the abridged format.

Gordon Tietjens, the New Zealand sevens coach, has often spoken in the past about Messam’s ability to get fit quickly to play sevens.

Messam, who is about to embark on an XVs career in Japan, was a standout player, and New Zealand’s captain, on the sevens series before becoming a full All Black.

He has, though, seamlessly slipped back in to the abbreviated game on occasions, most notably to become a Commonwealth Games gold medalist.

South Africa were powerful enough with just their regular sevens core in dominating the field to win the Emirates International Trophy 11 months ago.

That will be reinforced by the likes of Habana, Damian de Allende and Francois Hougaard being available this season.

“The forthcoming season is the most important in the history of Sevens rugby,” Jurie Roux, the chief executive of South Africa rugby was quoted as saying on the union’s website.

“The new, expanded World Series and the Olympic Games are two huge challenges and we at SARU want to make sure we give our Springbok Sevens team the best possible chance of success.”

Neil Powell, the South Africa coach, says his side will be stronger than ever this season.

“The addition of the group of Springbok and provincial players will raise our game significantly and present us with an opportunity to build an even stronger Springbok Sevens team,” Powell was quoted as saying.

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