Samoa to host Oceania Sevens

The Samoa rugby union will host the 2011 Oceania Sevens Championship in Apia on October 28 and 29.

The Federation of Oceania Rugby Unions (FORU) made the announcement last week.

The Oceania Sevens Championship is also the regional qualification tournament for the HSBC Sevens World Series. FORU member unions will compete to join the regions core teams of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and Samoa at selected legs of the HSBC Sevens World Series.

Tonga, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands qualified for the Adelaide and Wellington legs of the 2010/2011 HSBC Sevens World Series on the back of their performances at the 2010 Oceania Sevens Championship in Darwin, Australia.

Tonga also qualified for the Hong Kong Sevens after finishing 3rd in Darwin.

The FORU member unions are American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Oceania Sevens Championship tournament director, Michael Groom, says the Samoa rugby union has a proven track record in hosting major international rugby events and will deliver an outstanding tournament.

In recent years, the Samoa rugby union has hosted rugby world cup qualifiers, womens rugby world cup qualifiers, rugby sevens world cup qualifiers, the Pacific nations cup, Pacific rugby cup and the Oceania under 19 championship they have an excellent event management team and they will deliver the championship to a level befitting the quality of the teams that will be participating.

Australia are the defending champions after defeating Samoa 34-12 in the final of the 2010 Oceania Sevens Championships.