Going viral: 9 thumb-stopping HSBC SVNS 2025 moments

Just 10 minutes spooling through the official HSBC SVNS Instagram feed is enough to make anyone chuckle, wince, coo, gasp, and fall in love twice over.

It’s a waltzer-ride of fancy dress and awesome athleticism – of personalities, theatre, and the laws of physics getting scoffed at – so it’s no surprise the series’ iconic stadia simply can’t contain the action, that clips go viral with the sort of ballast usually reserved for Luciano Gonzalez Rizzoni, or the speed Jorja Miller can hit on an outside arc.

Let’s start with the nation who play exclusively in highlight reels and leave jaws strewn on floors wherever they go...

Terio Veilawa is going nowhere. He’s isolated, tumbling, and hasn’t any purchase on the Perth pitch. But that doesn’t matter, because he’s in a Fiji jersey – so he chicken-wing whips it 30 astonishing metres to Viwa Naduvalo, who puts in the sort of goose step that requires specialist insurance, and is gone.

If you’re deep in internet culture you’ll remember how, in September 2023, TikTok exploded with the revelation that men think about the Roman Empire much more than anyone could possibly have predicted. 

But, if you’re deep in HSBC SVNS culture, this is your Roman Empire: Maddi Levi’s mind-meltingly potent intervention in the Singapore final. A try-saver, strip, rise, and accelerate all in one: a leonine movement that might not have conclusively stemmed the Black Ferns Sevens' tide but gave us all another opportunity to wonder what we did to deserve Australia’s number 12. 

Faith Nathan is the closest thing sevens rugby has to a jaguar: ferocious, sleek, and exuberantly agile. In Hong Kong, though, we were reminded she is – in fact – human, and capable of having a hair (or 60) out of place. The moment she’s caught on camera, clocking the fact she appears to have moonwalked through a hedge back to halfway, is fabulously relatable. We’ve all been there.

For what it’s worth, Faith, the lashes are immaculate, your skin’s glowing, and you’re one of the best on the planet. We’d kill to look like you after 12 minutes in the ring with Sarah Hirini.

Speaking of the league champions, there’s Michaela Brake, who’s perennially doing numbers online as well as shattering them on-field. Her team-mates’ haka after she became the series’ all-time leading try-scorer was spine-tingling, but this is the instance we’ve revisited time and again.

The anthem emotions are beautiful, from tear-streaked cheeks to trembling chin. And then, in a transition which she admits in the comments section surprised even herself, the whistle sounds, and she’s off: decimating Australia’s defence. The Mini out-morphing The Hulk.

Half a million people watched Marcos Moneta do this, a week on from hundreds of thousands wondering who was cutting onions nearby as he collapsed to the turf in Hong Kong, demons vanquished and history made. 

He had returned to the tournament where it all came unstuck – with a broken fibula and a terminal uppercut to Argentina’s 2024 – and dazzled. With his parents, who’d crossed the globe to see him, in the stands, the comeback was complete as Los Pumas went back-to-back in Singapore, with nitrous-fuelled scores like these at the heart of it. Writing about viral rugby moments without writing about El Rayo would be silly.

Kenya are, as they say, ‘a vibe’. Their rugby goes off like fireworks, their celebrations make Northampton Saint’s raging ball of rugby energy Henry Pollock look vanilla, and their fans… peerless. 

We’ve spent the season devouring BTS of them in training, of a young French supporter being absorbed into Kenya Corner and promptly learning all the chants, and of their ridiculous game-breaking abilities. The series is richer for their presence in every way – and seeing them glitz their way to Singapore’s final was magnificent. 

Kim Kardashian is widely credited with breaking the internet back in 2014, but please let’s all take a moment to remember when Mateo Viñals broke the grip test machine in Vancouver. 

Alexa: show me ‘scenes’. A reminder, as if it was needed, sevens athletes are freaks – and don’t need your zeitgeist gadgets to send users wild, thank you very much.

They say bad news travels fast, but the irrepressible popularity of SVNS content is a counter to that. Six destinations’ worth of the joyful and extraordinary have captured imaginations just as powerfully, with one team guaranteed to prompt double taps and doubled heart rates.

As epitomised by these fans, anything involving Spain will, just like Cupid, fly. TikTok dance trends, dunking one another during recovery swims, celebrating their historic season with complete abandon – or even the simple act of saying their nicknames to camera. 

It’s no coincidence Pol Pla is just two letters short of ‘popular’: this is a squad on the up, and relishing the opportunity to entertain on and off-field. If we’re talking ‘viral’, then consider us all Spain Sevens’ lovesick.

Last up? The Platonic ideal of SVNS content. Aristotle couldn’t have dreamed it. Da Vinci couldn’t have painted it. Art. Drama. Colour. Detail. Players defying physics while a vast beer snake wends its way past a squadron of fist-pumping chillies and a pair of enrapt Minions. In the background, the soft screams of short seams on the cusp of ruin. 

They’re the tour’s true heroes: you could assemble an entire dream team of stitches. Sevens tag-team restart catches are a shortcut to engagement (just ask anyone in the brilliant social department), but – whatever you do – do not try this at home.

This one’s the HSBC SVNS Series in a glorious tableau. Drink it in … and then join us in LA.