Player's Guide to SA Rugby Club Sevens Senior 2026

Under the World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 sevens variations (Law 5):

Extra time (for a drawn match that needs a winner)

• Play restarts after a one-minute break.
• Extra time is played in periods of up to 5 minutes, changing ends after each period without an interval.
• The referee holds a new toss before extra time.
• The first team to score wins, with no further play.

World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 (sevens variations)

• A team may nominate and use up to five replacements. The match organiser decides how many may be nominated, up to a maximum of five.

SA Rugby Side-Line Management Protocol for Sevens (SA Rugby tournaments)

• The same player may be replaced more than once, as long as the team makes no more than five replacements in total.
• Each team gets six replacement cards per match. The team manager completes a card for each change (tactical, injury, blood or HIA), and the replacement controller sends the player on through the technical zone manager.
• At a penalty kick, the non-offending team may ask for a replacement, and the opponents may then also make replacements. The penalised team may not start the replacement process.
• At try time, the referee only needs to be told "replacement completed".

Under the World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 sevens variations (Law 9.29):

• A yellow card in sevens is a 2-minute suspension, not the 10 minutes of fifteens.
• If you commit another yellow-card offence in the same match, you are sent off.

If a temporary replacement is shown a yellow card, the player they replaced may not come back until the suspension is over, and only if medically cleared and within the required time.

At SA Rugby tournaments, the technical zone manager tells the referee when a sin-binned player may return.

Under the World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 sevens variations:

Conversions

• Must be a drop kick.
• Must be taken within 30 seconds (playing time) of the try being awarded, or the kick is disallowed.
• The opposing team immediately gathers close to its own 10-metre line. If they infringe and the kick misses, it is retaken and they may not charge.

Penalty goals

• Must be a drop kick. Sanction: scrum.
• Must be taken within 30 seconds (playing time) of the team indicating it will kick at goal, or the kick is disallowed and a scrum is awarded.

In extra time, the first team to score wins immediately, so a try ends the match without a conversion.

In sevens, the team that scored kicks off. This is the opposite of fifteens. Under the World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 sevens variations:

• The restart is a drop kick from on or behind the centre of the halfway line.
• It must be taken within 30 seconds of the conversion being taken or declined, or of a penalty goal or dropped goal being kicked. Sanction: free kick.
• The kicker's team-mates must be behind the ball. Sanction: free kick.
• The ball must reach the 10-metre line. Sanction: free kick.
• The ball must not go directly into touch. Sanction: free kick.
• If the ball goes into the opponents' in-goal without touching anyone, and they ground it or it goes dead or into touch-in-goal, the receiving team gets a free kick.

After an unsuccessful kick at goal goes dead through in-goal, the restart must be taken within 30 seconds.

Under the World Rugby Laws of the Game 2026 sevens variations:

Scrums

• Three players from each team, and all three must stay bound until the scrum ends. Sanction: penalty.
• Teams must be ready to form the scrum within 15 seconds of the mark. Sanction: free kick.
• A front-row player may not intentionally kick the ball out of the tunnel, or out of the scrum towards the opponents' try line. Sanction: penalty.
• The scrum ends when the ball is played by the scrum-half.

Lineouts

• Teams must form the lineout within 15 seconds of the assistant referee or touch judge indicating the mark. Sanction: free kick.

Penalties and free kicks

• Punt or drop-kick only; a place kick is not allowed.

Held up in-goal

• Play restarts with a 5-metre scrum in line with where the player was held up. The attacking team throws in.

SA Rugby's Under-aged Rugby Regulations, Addendum 2 (Sevens) apply both the school age-banding rules and the adult under-age rules to sevens:

• School rugby: a player selected above their age band needs the coach to submit a Schedule A form to the provincial union, signed off by all responsible parties, before the player may take part. The front-row Schedule B clearance does not apply in sevens.
• Adult rugby: an under-aged player must be nominated by the provincial union and go through the clause 5 clearance process in SA Rugby's Under-aged Rugby Regulations for Adult Rugby. The extra front-row clauses (2 to 4) do not apply in sevens.
• The signed forms and official clearance must go with the player to every tournament or match. Without them, the player will be refused participation.

The front-row exemptions exist because sevens scrums are not treated like full 15-a-side scrum contests.

SA Rugby's Side-Line Management Protocol for Sevens applies at SA Rugby sevens tournaments (World Rugby and Rugby Africa tournaments use their own protocol where one exists).

Technical zone (maximum 9 people per team)

• head coach
• team manager
• a medically trained physiotherapist
• one more person who is medically trained or a coaching member of the team (notified to the tournament director beforehand)
• the five reserve players

The zone may be no larger than 7 m long and 2.5 m wide. Teams must be in place 2 minutes before kick-off.

Water carriers

• A maximum of three people, wearing water-carrier bibs.
• They may go on only when play is stopped for an injury or after a try.
• The coach and manager may not act as water carriers.

Medical staff work from the technical zone and may roam the touchlines, one on each side of the field.

SA Rugby's Concussion Regulations apply to sevens as to every other form of the game:

• Recognise and Remove: you leave the field immediately and take no further part that day. That means the rest of the tournament day, not just the match. In amateur rugby the referee may show a Blue Card, and the tournament recorder notes it.
• At least 2 weeks with no contact rugby, and 24 to 48 hours of rest first.
• A graduated return to play, with a doctor's clearance before full-contact training.
• No match for 21 days after the injury. The only exception is a player managed by a recognised Advanced Care Concussion Doctor, who may return after no less than 14 days.