And they’re off! We’ve just seen kickoff of the USA Sevens Tournament in Las Vegas with Sevens Series Co-Champions England putting the wood to Guyana 49-0, while Argentina squeaked by a plucky French side, 21-19 to round out the first set of matches in Vegas’ Pool A.

There are a lot of questions coming up for this weekend’s tournament in Vegas, let’s see how the world’s elite Olympic Rugby teams answer them:

Will New Zealand continue their winning ways, started in South Africa in December and continuing last week when the series resumed in their home country, and overtake England in the Tournament standings?

Las Vegas could be the most important tournament of the Sevens series this year for co-leaders England and New Zealand. Remember that both teams enter the tournament tied for first place in the rankings at 64 points apiece. The USA Sevens could be the turning point for either of these two. A win in Las Vegas can provide the momentum needed to break away and hold onto the lead going into the second half of the tournament series.

Will the dice come up snake eyes for the mighty USA at their own tournament. While not ready yet to compete with the titans of the Olympic Rugby Universe, the Eagles have made great strides in recent years, and Al Caravelli has scouted out some great players with little budget from USA Rugby.

Can the Kenyan’s hit a full house in Vegas, build on their tournament results from last week, having beating Tonga for the NZ Sevens Bowl Championship? We already know with their flair and passionate fans they can fill the house at Sam Boyd Stadium.

And to continue the Vegas-Gambling metaphors, can 09-10 Series champs Samoa finally land hit that inside straight and make up ground on co-leaders New Zealand and England and repeat as series champions? They have to put a couple of tournament wins on the board for that to happen.

And what about the King of Olympic Rugby? Rumors have been flying that Fijian Sevens great Waisale Serevi has been planning an announcement of some kind for Olympic Rugby in the U.S.

All this and more might be found out, by watching NBC this weekend, where coverage of the tournament will be shown live, or live-ish. And for $3.99 you can get online streaming tournament coverage at Universal Sports’ Web site.