Frankie Horne of South Africa fends off Tim Mikkelson of New Zealand in the Cup Final. Photo / Getty Images
The International Rugby Board has announced a new points-scoring system for this season's world sevens circuit on the eve of the opening tournament on Australia's Gold Coast.
In a departure from previous practice, every team competing in any round of the 2011-2012 season will receive points toward the overall series standings. The IRB has also announced the creation of a "bronze" playoff between losing semifinalists.
IRB sevens manager Beth Coalter said sevens is a global game and "every team that arrives to play in each of the nine rounds of the World Series aspires to succeed in some capacity. It is only right that they should all take points away from each tournament, and this new system will also allow for more objective ranking of the teams come the end of each season."
Under the new system, the winner of each leg of the world series will receive 22 rather than the current 24 points, the runner up gets 19 rather than 20 points and the third and fourth teams earn 17 and 15 points respectively. Under the previous system the losing semifinalists both received 16 points.
All teams competing at a tournament will receive at least one point. Previously, the last team to receive points at a tournament was the winner of the bowl section which received four points: raised to eight points on the new scale.
- AP
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