The Australian Men's Sevens are out to make history in Los Angeles over the weekend, hunting for their first World Series title.
John Manenti's side have experienced a breakout season, currently sitting in second place, two points behind Commonwealth Games gold medalist South Africa.
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They have never won a World Series title, with their best finish of second coming over 20 years ago in 2000-01.
Their London heroics have positioned them nicely within the pools, drawn alongside Argentina in Pool A, who sit four points behind the Aussies in third position.
Meanwhile, South Africa have a tough assignment in Pool B, facing off against a resurgent New Zealand along with Canada and USA.
Fiji remains a slim chance in Pool C but needs serious results to go their way to have any chance, needing to win the title and all three teams finish outside top six.
So it should be as simple as beat those teams, win the title right?
Well not so fast
With the start of the season compromised due to COVID, World Rugby implemented an unique ranking points system for the 2022 Series which sees only the best seven out of the nine tournament results count towards the Series ranking for each team.
It makes the task slightly harder for the Australians, failing to adequately recognise their consistency and dominance across the World Series.
Under the usual system, they'd enter the event in LA as the title leaders with 132 points, putting them in a solid position over the likes of the Blitboks (129) and Argentina (126).
However, the system means South Africa's 11th place finish in Toulouse does not count, with their seventh place in Singapore set to be dropped with another strong showing this week.
Meanwhile, Australia has not finished lower than seventh, needing to improve on their fifth-place finish to kick off the Series in Dubai to make up the difference.
Therefore, the Australians need a top three finish to put themselves in with a chance of a historic title and to pull off the double following the Women's success in May.
AUSTRALIA WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES IF:
- Australia win the title, South Africa finish no better than 4th
- Australia finish second, South Africa no better than 5th
- Australia finish third, South Africa no better than 7th, Argentina don't win the title
*All times AEST
Sunday August 28
Australia v Japan, 5:04 am AEST
Australia v Argentina, 8:15 am AEST
Australia v Spain, 12:03 pm AEST
