Kenya Sevens will play Tonga in their Rugby World Cup Sevens opener on Friday, September 9, 2022, at 11.23 am EAT at the Cape Town Stadium, World Rugby has confirmed.

The Pre-round of 16 match will determine who will proceed to the round of 16 to face Argentina on the same day at 5.23 p.m while the loser will be knocked out of the Cup contention.

Kenya Sevens run

Shujaa are two-time semifinalists, having reached the final four in 2009 in Dubai under the late Benjamin Ayimba and again in 2013 in Moscow under Mike Friday.

The squad made their RWC 7s debut in 2001 at Mar del Plata and has since been a fixture, competing in successive editions in 2005 (Hong Kong), 2009 (Dubai), 2013 (Moscow), and 2018. (San Francisco).

Damian McGrath will be eyeing better performance with Shujaa who only managed a 16th-place finish in the USA in 2018.

Samoa will face African Champions Uganda, Ireland will play Portugal, Canada battle the Zimbabwe Cheetahs, and Scotland will play Jamaica in the pre-round of 16.

Other round one matches will see Wales will face Korea, Hong Kong play Uruguay, and Germany will face Chile.

The first match-ups for the highly anticipated Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022 have been revealed with 50 days to go until the three-day pinnacle event kicks off in Cape Town.

The first match-ups for the highly anticipated Rugby World Cup Sevens 2022 have been revealed with 50 days to go until the three-day pinnacle event kicks off in Cape Town, South Africa on 9-11 September.

The innovative ‘winner takes all’ knock-out competition format first introduced at Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 means every match counts as teams will need to win every time they enter the pitch in order to become world champions.

Qualification

On day one, the 24-team men’s competition begins with a qualification round including teams seeded from nine to 24. The qualifying round winners will advance to the round of 16, where they will face the top eight seeded teams, while the losers will compete in the Bowl competition, which will determine places 17 to 24.

In the qualifying round, ninth seeds Ireland, who have been in excellent form on the World Series this year, will face Portugal, who defeated core Series team Spain in the European qualifier last weekend to secure their place in Cape Town.

South Africa is the top seed in the men’s event after a historic 36-match winning streak that saw them win six rounds of the World Series in a row from 2021 to 2022. They will, however, face heavy opposition from Australia, which is ranked second, and Fiji, which is seeded third. New Zealand is the defending men’s champion and is seeded fifth in the event.

The seedings for both the men’s and women’s competitions were based on points earned during the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in 2020 and 2022, while teams who did not compete in the Series were seeded based on their World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series 2020 rankings in conjunction with regional ranking positions ending in July 2022