Created for Youth Academy and Club teams from all over the World, the North American Invitational (NAI) Sevens is the largest sevens event in the Americas and the second largest event of its kind in the World.
Taking place at the Utah Regional Athletic Complex in Salt Lake City, the competition is open to any youth team around the world from U12 to U23. This year there were almost 160 teams, over 400 matches and The Rugby Foundation CEO Phil Klevorick was on had again working with the "Third Team", the amazing match officials.
Speaking during a slight break in the huge and complex schedule, Phil commented "this is one of my favourite tournaments each year. We have a dozen fields, over sixty referees, ten coaches and assessors and a myriad of admin staff making sure the scores are entered, the discipline reports are completed, the referees are where they need to be and that they are properly looked after."
At the same time Phil has also been spreading the Foundation's messages amongst the players and coaches, particularly the concussion awareness project in conjunction with Concussion Vital Signs (CVS). Phil conmmented "I'm so excited about the benefits of the CVS programme. There are a couple of admin changes to be completed and we are ready to launch." With more and more former players announcing they have been diagnosed with conditions such as MND and the legal action being taken by former players, Phil continued, "For the first time we have a tool and a system that can really make a difference to players, especially the younger ones who will hopefully have a long career ahead of them. Every player should go to our website and check out the CVS programme."
When asked about the referee team at the NAI 7s he said "This is a brilliant group of people. I think we have officials from nine countries and we have already identified a few from Europe to work with one of our partner organisations there to do more tournaments and receive excellent coaching as a match official in the game of 7s."
"It's not all about the rugby though. The referees work hard but they also need to bond as a team themselves; we took them to the rodeo in Utah whilst they were in camp, most of them had never seen a rodeo in real life before and they were totally engrosed in the action"
"The programme that wee have for overseas referees is really important, not only for the tournament but for young referees in the US too. Rugby is such a diverse sport and the referees are no different, it's great that they make new friends from all over the globe, friends they visit, exchange with and they keep for life.
