Rugby sevens
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THIRTEEN teams will compete for more than $2200 in prizemoney at the inaugural SIRU Summer of Sevens tournament at Connolly Rugby Complex on Saturday.
Ten teams will line up in the men's competition, with entrants from Sydney and Canberra along with teams from six SIRU clubs.
Ag College, CSU, Temora and Tumut have entered a team with two teams entered from Waratahs and Leeton.
Only three teams have entered the women's competition, with Leeton, Temora and CSU set to play off for the $750 in prizemoney.
Event organiser Angus Macleod has been pleased with the interest shown in the competition's first year which has slightly evolved from organisers' initial plans.
"The interest has been pretty good. We had initially wanted to run a competition over four weeks on a Wednesday evening but due to the nature of university sides such as Rivcoll and Ag College they weren't going to be able to field a side to the beginning of March anyway," Macleod said.
"A lot of the other clubs had prior commitments to touch and other things.
"Being the first year as we hadn't initially thought of doing it on a Saturday has set us back a bit, but if all goes well on this weekend I'd like to be able to spread it further afield next year and have some interest from league clubs as well."
Macleod said the idea sprung from looking to give the fledging code more prominence in the city ahead of its Olympic debut in 2016.
"I think there is a bit of a need for the tournament and to have a bit of fun before the season started," Macleod said.
"With sevens becoming an Olympic sport it is a great opportunity to showcase that as well."
The men's competition will be split into two pools of five, before the top two from each go into semi-finals while the three women's teams will play each other before the two highest ranked teams play off in the winner-takes-all final.