Most clubs pick a kit once they have players, a fixture list and a reason to need one. We did it the other way round.
In January 2026 TR7 was three or four lads, a group chat, and a fairly loose plan to enter some sevens tournaments over the summer. What we had instead of a squad was a very clear idea of how we wanted to look when we finally got one.
Designed to be seen
Sevens is a format that gets photographed. Wide pitches, big skies, long lenses, and a lot of standing around between games in the sun. A shirt that reads clearly from the far touchline matters more than it does in fifteens, where you are usually at the bottom of a heap anyway.
So the brief was simple: bold, high contrast, and legible from forty metres. Nothing subtle, nothing that turns into mush in a photograph. It is sevens — the kit should look like it knows that.
Ciaran / Liam — this one wants your version of events. Who designed it, what the thinking was, whether there were other options on the table, and the story behind the crest. A few lines in your own words will beat anything written around it. Photos of the design process or early drafts would be gold here too.
Kit before team
There is a reasonable argument that this was the wrong order to do things in. We would make the case that it was not.
Deciding what the shirt looked like forced us to decide what the team was. A name, a design and a crest are a commitment — much harder to walk away from than a group chat. Once the thing existed on a screen, the rest of it had to follow.
Turned out to be the easiest decision of the year.