Pete Richards: If I was a young player now, I would be playing 7s

London Irish 7s and academy coach Pete Richards was talking exclusively to the Evening Standard ahead of this week’s J.P Morgan Asset Management Premiership Rugby 7s.
Pete Richards1 August 2013

With rugby appearing at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, a Commonwealth Games in Glasgow just around the corner and the IRB World Series going from strength-to-strength – what a time to be playing 7s.

If I was a young Aviva Premiership player now and I was good at 7s then that is absolutely what I would be doing, I would be focusing on trying to get myself in to a position where I was eligible to play in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The opportunity to play at an Olympic Games after London 2012 would be such a special thing to do. I think that it will raise the profile enormously of the game and high-profile competitions like the J.P Morgan Premiership 7s are crucial to that. 

The prospect of playing in an Olympic Games would be fantastic but you’ve got to commit to 7s for at least 12 months, if not 24 months because the level that these international players are playing at far exceeds turning up and having a throw around.

Obviously to get up to speed to excel in the international 7s team, talent is one thing but it takes a lot of training.

England have a wonderful 7s program and these guys are full-time professional athletes and the sort of statistics they’re throwing out in terms of their fitness and speed levels compared to XV-a-side athletes is a different bracket altogether.

I’ve seen a couple of England players mention that they want to play 7s but it takes some time to get up to speed with what these guys are putting themselves through.

Last year we played a very strong squad indeed and won it – the likes of Jonathan Joseph, Topsy Ojo, Tom Homer and Shane Geraghty all featured – but ahead of this year’s J.P Morgan Premiership Rugby 7s Brian Smith has decided for a change of emphasis at London Irish. 

We put a strong squad out last year and obviously won the tournament but this year Brian wants to blood new squad members this year and increase competition – it’s what the tournament is all about.

With such a small squad it’s very much this year up to the young academy players, plus some guys from outside – it as an opportunity to blood a number of our academy and that can only benefit London Irish going forward.

For all of them it will be their first exposure of Premiership level rugby, so they we will be keen to see how they adapt to those circumstances and what a chance to play against the likes of Tom Varndell at London Wasps or England and Saracens winger Chris Ashton.

There are certainly players to watch in the London Irish squad; Gerard Ellis was a former N.8 now plying his trade as a hooker, he’s a really dynamic and powerful ball runner.

He was part of the squad when he was 18 last summer’s that won the tournament, so this is his second time around.

I’m looking forward to see how he goes and a couple other members of the squad; Ed Hoadley who’s a scrum half and is 18 is also a very special talent.

The third name is Tom Fowlie who on Monday is travelling to South Africa with England U18s; he’s an outside centre who is a real talent for the future just fresh out of school.

It’s a great opportunity to try something that’s not so natural for him playing 7s, a great opportunity for him to run in space and see what he can do.

I’ve seen obviously the squads that have been picked for our leg and Harlequins and Saracens are taking it very seriously.

There’s some real quality in both sides that will test our party enormously, so I’m looking forward to see how the youngsters step up to those challenges.

The third leg of J.P Morgan Premiership Rugby 7s will be at Allianz Park, the home of Saracens, on Saturday 3 August. For tickets and more information visit: www.jpmorgan7s.com or follow @jpmorganrugby7s

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in