After full-time cuts, GB sevens players chase game time from Mumbai and Mie to a new Madrid series

Abbie Brown and other Great Britain sevens players have been travelling to competitions in Mumbai and Mie this summer and are set to feature in a new Madrid event after Great Britain scrapped its full-time sevens programme in July, leaving the men's and women's squads to operate part-time for tournaments only.

The decision to end the full-time programme, taken to save money, coincided with a sharp decline in results: both Great Britain’s men's team, which won silver at Rio 2016, and the women's team, which has twice finished fourth at the Olympics, placed last in the eight-strong top tier of the Svns global series and will compete in the second tier next year against teams such as Belgium, Brazil and China.

Players who moved into 15s at the top level previously spent time in sevens, a pathway Abbie Brown highlighted when she said, "Some of the world's best 15 players have come through sevens." The report notes that six of the seven named in an England backline played in the Red Roses' World Cup final win over Canada last year and that, before that, "all seven played top-level sevens."

Brown described the operational impact of the shift to part-time sevens, saying: "I think we had over 25 new caps across the year, over 60-odd people in and out of camps. So when you look at the stats and how much training we had, we just couldn't keep competing with the world's best. We only had a handful of sessions before we competed against some teams that have been together for the whole of my career." The programme change also means the men's and women's players no longer train together year-round and only assemble for tournaments.

Off the pitch, Brown has supplemented her income through coaching and mentoring and holds a 15-a-side contract with Premiership Women's Rugby side Loughborough Lightning, while continuing to seek sevens opportunities: "We've not stopped training or doing the most we can - if you enjoy something, then you've got to keep doing it," she added. "And sevens is exactly where I find my love." This summer she captained the Mumbai Dreamers franchise in India's Rugby Premier League, and team-mate Ellie Boatman has been playing for the Mie Pearls in Japan.

A new domestic option is Ultimate Sevens, a short-form circuit launching in September that names Brown as one of its marquee players. The series will stage four events in Madrid, Cardiff, Biarritz and London, feature 10-minute knockout matches with optional timeouts rather than a usual half-time break, and be contested by six newly minted teams. Tom Mitchell, the event's sport and innovations director, said: "Underneath it all is a massive passion for helping the sport to thrive and succeed as well, because I know it can. I'm not coming in here saying that Ultimate Sevens is the white knight and the saviour of a sport. It's not about that. It's about us contributing additional opportunity, both in playing time but also financial opportunity, for players and coaches. That might mean relieving some of the pressure on the international programmes as well." The piece also notes that while R360, a breakaway 15s event, floundered in the face of opposition from existing unions and a lack of World Rugby ratification, Mitchell aims for Ultimate Sevens to complement the existing calendar rather than disrupt it.

Fifteen of Brown and Boatman's Great Britain colleagues, including Svns rookie of the year nominee Finley Lloyd-Gilmour, will compete in Ultimate Sevens, joined by international names such as Australia's Maddison Levi and Argentina's Luciano Gonzalez. Mitchell joked about support from friends, saying, "Meg is definitely going to be there with a sign for you Abbie. Even if she is training she'll bring the crew down!" to which Brown replied, "She'd better do - I'll be having words if she doesn't!"

Ultimate Sevens will build toward a finale at Gtech Community Stadium in Brentford on 24 September, offering a confirmed domestic sevens platform for many British players who have had to seek playing time abroad since the full-time national programme ended.