Blitzboks to face either Germany or Chile in RWC Sevens opener

World Rugby on Thursday revealed the match schedule for the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens to be hosted at Cape Town Stadium.

South Africa's men's team, the Blitzboks, will tackle either Germany or Chile in their opening game, while the Springboks Women's Sevens team will square up against France.

Thursday (21 July) marks 50 days to the start of the showpiece event scheduled for 9-11 September.

View match schedule

The innovative 'winner takes all' knock-out format, which was first introduced at the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens, means every match counts as teams will need to win every time in order to become world champions. 

The 24-team men's competition starts with a qualification round involving teams seeded from nine to 24. The winners of the qualification round will progress to the round of 16 where they will take on the top eight seeded teams, while the losers will go into the Bowl competition which will decide positions 17 to 24.

The Blitzboks are top seeds in men's tournament following a stunning 36-match winning streak that saw them win six rounds in a row during the 2021/22 World Series.

They will face the winner of the Germany-Chile match on the opening day but can expect stiffer competition the next day. Australia are seeded second and double Olympic champions Fiji third, while the All Blacks Sevens are the reigning men's champions and seeded fifth.

There will be some hard-fought matches in the qualification round as ninth seeds Ireland, who have been in outstanding form on the World Series this year, play Portugal, who overcame core series team Spain in the European qualifier last weekend to claim their place in Cape Town.  

Germany and Chile, who have both impressed as invitational teams on the World Series, come