Discipline has been a worry for the Fiji 7s side and local clubs for the last few seasons and organizers of the 45th Fiji Bitter Marist 7s have found a way to help out.

As part of the tournament’s sapphire anniversary, Tournament Director Koli Korovulavula says they’ve incorporated things that are of value to the teams.

He says it would not be right if what they are introducing doesn’t help the teams which includes a shadow national side that is going to take part.

Korovulavula says a team without a yellow or red card will get a bonus point.

“We’ve created a card bonus if a team plays without being issued a card they’ll get a bonus point for that so that will come into play before we work on the points difference if you notice the HSBC tournaments when teams are tied it goes to points difference, we are stepping into looking at the cards bonus first”.

Another interesting fact about this year’s tournament is teams will not know who they’ll play after their first pool match.

This means the result of a team’s first pool match will determine their next opponent.

Korovulavula says this is part of the new format that will be used at the tournament later this month.

He says they’ve divided the pools into three groups of 16, four teams will be in one pool and four pools in one group.

Korovulavula says after all the games in the respective groups, there should be three unbeaten teams.

He adds afterwards the teams will then be ranked before the top 16 proceed to the eliminations.

There are 32 new teams out of the 48 that will be part of the tournament.

The Marist 7s will be held from next Thursday to Saturday at the ANZ Stadium in Suva.