Rugby legends Serevi and Gollings play together for first time in Burnaby

BURNABY, B.C. - Two international rugby sevens legends will do their part Saturday to help Canada's cause in the fledgling Olympic sport.

Ben Gollings, the sport's all-time points leader, and Waisale Serevi, the game's former points record-holder, used to battle against each other while playing for England and Fiji, respectively. This Saturday, however, they will play on the same Seattle-based squad in the Serevi Vancouver International tournament at Swangard Stadium in suburban Burnaby.

Gollings, making his first visit to Canada, said the one-day tournament involving eight men's and four women's club teams, will help Canada develop the talent it needs to qualify for the 2016 Games.

Rugby sevens will be included in the Olympics for the first time in Rio de Janeiro. The world's top eight teams will qualify automatically while four others must earn wild-card entries.

“With sevens in the Olympics, these tournaments are going to get bigger and bigger and provide that development tool because sevens players are going to have to play sevens all year round to be competitive,” he said following a sparsely-attended news conference Thursday at a Burnaby hotel.

“They won’t be able to move between the two (sevens and 15s). I did it for my whole career but now you’re getting the growth of the fulltime sevens player.”

The game is a variant of rugby union with teams consisting of seven players instead of the standard 15. A rugby sevens game normally consists of two halves of seven minutes with a one-minute break at half-time. A normal rugby match lasts 80 minutes.

Gollings, 32, compiled 2,652 points in a career that spanned 70 tournaments. Serevi, 44, whose Seattle-based namesake company sponsors the event, produced 1,310 points while representing his island nation 39 times. He won two sevens World Cups (1997, 2005) as well as a Commonwealth Games crown while also appearing three times in the conventional rugby World Cup.

They will toil together with a select team that also bears Serevi's name.

"It’s great for me," said Gollings, who is now a player-coach with the Rugby Lions, a team based in Rugby, England, where the game was invented.

“This guy was my idol, my hero, growing up. For me now to get this opportunity — I’ve been waiting over a decade to get the opportunity for us to play together, which is exciting," said Gollings. "We’ve always played against each other."

Serevi's company helps develop rugby sevens. He described his initial involvement in the fourth annual Vancouver tournament in 2010 as a turning point in his life.

"I thought that rugby had given me a lot and it was about time to give back to the sport," he said. "I play a little here and there but at the same time I’m trying to pass on the knowledge I have to the kids."

In addition to Serevi's squad, the men's side will include the Fiji Wardens, the Cayman Islands national team, Old Puget Sound Beach of Seattle, South Seas, Wings Fijian Selects, as well as Edmonton and host Burnaby squads.

The women's competition will feature Serevi Selects Women, Velox from Victoria, as well as Abbotsford and Burnaby teams.

Organizers are hoping Gollings and Serevi's star power will help generate a sizable crowd to the rapidly-growing event. The tournament moved to Burnaby after it outgrew the Abbotsford location where it spent the past three years.

Swangard Stadium seats 4,500, and can be expanded temporarily in the future to accommodate upwards of 12,000, said tournament chairman Doug Okero.

He hopes the tournament will continue to grow in size while improving Canada's Olympic hopes.

"Our goal is to be part of the Olympics," said Okero. "We're here for the long term."

News from © The Canadian Press, 2012