The 2014/15 IRB Sevens World Series kicks off with the Gold Coast tournament this weekend, and with Olympic qualification hinging on teams performance this year, the circuit promises to be the most competitive in some time. With that in mind, what better way to welcome the new Sevens season in than by checking out the new shirts of Gold Coast hosts Australia…
When ASICS unveiled the new Wallabies shirt for this season, we were pleased by its tasteful, classic simplicity, but as you can see, there’s no such concerns here. As we’ve said many times, sevens shirts are supposed to be a bit mental, and this certainly fulfils the brief in that regard.
As we look around the rugby world, it would appear that weird geometric shapes are very in right now – indeed, the new alternate Argentina shirt is replete with a triangle motif that’s not too dissimilar from what we have here.
As with previous Aussie sevens shirts, the green and gold used is of a much brighter hue than the XVs shirt – in fact it’s definitely more yellow, and we have to say we quite like the gradually fading green triangles here (are they boomerangs? Please say they’re supposed to be boomerangs).
We’re not so fussed on the honeycomb pattern that’s been layered on top of the triangles, however – it feels a bit too much, though we really like the inclusion of the Southern Cross on the back of the jersey, borrowed from the front of the home jersey.
The alternate design is, if anything, nicer than the home jersey – the shade of blue used is really nice here, and the boomerang (yup, we’re going with boomerangs) pattern is easier to make out, and the flashes of light blue in the reverse-fade here really makes the shirt stand out.
We could do without the Northern Cross being yellow round the back – it looks a bit garish on an already bold design, when white or light blue would have done the job perfectly well. We do like how the pattern gives more emphasis to the plain dark blue around the collar, sleeve cuffs and sides of the shirt here, however. Australia don’t have much call for a change shirt, but we’ll be happy to see them run out in this as often as they please.
Sevens shirts are supposed to be a bit weird. We’ve said it a million times, but it’s true – they don’t carry the burden of having to be crowd-pleasing massive sellers like the XVs jerseys, and as such, it lets designers try something a bit different. We’re not sure ASICS has quite hit the mark entirely here, but particularly with the away shirt, there’s a lot to like here.
SHIT/GOOD RATING: GOOD
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