STATE OF PLAY

Uncertain futures on the SVNS series, funding issues and the small matter of the Olympics - former captain TOM MITCHELL looks at what's going on with Team GB

- TOM MITCHELL

IN A TUESDAY I’ll get up at 4am and go to Glasgow airport. 6am flight to Heathrow, travel to Hazlewood, do a double rugby day and finish at 6pm.”

A typical start to a Great Britain training camp for Robbie Fergusson. Similarly, Max McFarland would take a 4am bus to Belfast airport, fly to Glasgow and catch a taxi to Largs to make a 9am team meeting when camps were based in Scotland.

Arrangements like this don’t exactly support high-performance training.

However, this year, without a full time set-up and permanent base, logistics like these aren’t uncommon.

“Four of us Scottish boys stayed in an Airbnb in Wembley. That didn’t mean much to me until I went on Citymapper and saw it was 180 minutes from training. A 30-minute walk, three trains, an underground and a 25-minute walk the other side.”

Budget constraints dictated that price tags would dominate decision-making in this year’s sevens programme.

A WHISTLESTOP HISTORY OF GB SEVENS