Los Angeles will host an IRB Sevens tournament for the first time next year.

The event will be held at the magnificent Home Depot Centre stadium in Carson City, LA on February 14th and 15th. It will be staged a week after the long established and immensely successful Wellington tournament.

Mark Egan, IRB Sevens Manager, said, "It is the ideal arena for Sevens and is sure to generate a superb atmosphere. Bringing the event to Los Angeles is a milestone for Sevens and for the promotion of rugby in the USA.

There is huge enthusiasm for Sevens rugby in the USA, with over 100 Sevens tournaments taking place annually throughout the country, and I am sure that this superb stadium will prove to be an extremely popular venue for players and spectators alike".

The 8 venues selected for the 2003/04 season will remain in place for the next three years and include Bordeaux in the penultimate round on May 28/29th with Twickenham staging the final tournament the following week.

New Zealand will open the defence of their title at the Dubai Tournament on December 3rd-5th.

40 nations will compete in the 2003/04 IRB Sevens taking in eight countries on five continents. While the 2004 title will be fiercely contested between New Zealand, England, Fiji, South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Samoa, there will be much interest in the progress of the ever improving and exciting Kenyans and the likes of Georgia, Zambia and Morocco, who all produced outstanding sevens rugby in the 2002/03
circuit.

Those tournaments to miss out on the new schedule are Brisbane, Chile, Beijing, Malaysia and Cardiff.

Last season's schedule was severely disrupted by cancellations, with four tournaments scrapped due to a mixture of transport issues and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

THE FULL SCHEDULE
Dec 3-5 Dubai
Dec 12-13 George (South Africa)
Feb 6-7 Wellington
Feb 14-15 Los Angeles
Mar 26-28 Hong Kong
Apr 3-4 Singapore
May 28-29 Bordeaux
June 5-6 London