Canada's women have been drawn in Pool A with Australia and Brazil at this weekend's Cape Town Sevens with a new format further adding to their challenge.
The South Africa event is the second of seven stops on the 2025 HSBC SVNS season.
The Australia women won the season opener in Dubai for the fifth straight year, defeating New Zealand 28-24 in Sunday's final. Canada finished eighth, losing 24-22 to Japan in the seventh-place playoff.
The Brazilians finished ninth in Dubai, losing 38-12 to Canada in pool play.
Two-time Olympic champion Fiji won the men's tournament, downing Spain 19-5 in the Spaniards' first-ever cup final.
The South Africa event will see 12 men's and women's teams divided into four pools of three with the pool winners advancing directly to semifinals. That means Canada will have to get past Australia, which won in a 39-0 romp when they met in pool play in Dubai.
The Cape Town pools were allocated based on rankings at the end of the Dubai tournament.
The other women's groups see New Zealand, Japan and China in Pool B, France, Ireland and Spain in Pool C and Britain, the U.S. and Fiji in Pool D.
The men's pools have Fiji, Britain and Uruguay in Pool A, Spain, Australia and Kenya in Pool B, Argentina, South Africa and Ireland in Pool C and New Zealand, France and the U.S. in Pool D.
After Cape Town, the circuit moves to Perth, Australia (Jan. 24-26), Vancouver (Feb. 21-23), Hong Kong (March 28-30) and Singapore (April 5-6) to decide the HSBC SVNS league winners, before the May 3-4 HSBC SVNS World Championship at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif.
The top eight men's and women's teams will then compete in the winner-take-all championship in California while the bottom four teams join the top four from the second-tier Challenger Series in a promotion-relegation playoff.
Relegated in June, the Canadian men had been a core team on the top sevens circuit since 2012-13 and lifted the trophy in Singapore in 2017. They finished eighth at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Canadian men won their way on to the Challenger Series last month when they won the Rugby Americas North (RAN) Sevens in Trinidad.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2024.
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Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press
