Tonga book ticket to San Francisco

Tonga secured the final Oceania qualifying spot at Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018 after taking bronze in rugby sevens at the Pacific Mini Games in Vanuatu.

Tonga beat the Solomon Islands 24-19 to join the 21 other qualified men's teams heading to San Francisco on 20-22 July, 2018. Samoa won the tournament, beating Fiji 14-17 in the final.

There will be 24 men's teams in total at Rugby World Cup Sevens 2018. Thirteen teams are qualified either by their placings at Moscow 2013 or via the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series and 11 through regional qualifiers. To date, nine of the 11 regional qualified teams are known, with Tonga joining Hong Kong, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Two other South American teams will be known in January to complete the 10 regional qualified sides.

The 10 sides will contest the Hong Kong Sevens qualifier next April to determine who takes seedings 15-24. The top 14 seeds will be allocated to series qualified teams, with the points from their 2016-17 series being added to the first seven rounds of the 2018 world series.

SOURCE: WORLD RUGBY/PNG Today