Scotland 7s will take on the island of Niue in the first round of the bowl tomorrow (Saturday 4 February) having been knocked out of the IRB New Zealand Sevens cup competition with loses to England and Australia today.

The Scots ran the Auld Enemy close in the first game this morning but they lost 12-5 before Australia ran out 22-12 winners in game two. Scotland finished the day on a high with a 34-12 win over Papua New Guinea. With the cup out of reach, Scotland have set their sights on taking silverware from the bowl.

Coach Rob Moffat reflected on the day. He said: “It was a bit frustrating. We played some good rugby in the first two games but we could and should have beaten both England and Australia.

“Against England, we played more of the game. One or two errors on our part gave England too much of the ball which again was frustrating because we looked very confident in both attack and defence early in on. Against Australia we scored first but they broke away and scored an interception try at the end to kill it off.

“They were good performances but we need to win. We were confident in our squad during the week and we need to be confident again tomorrow. We should win all three games in the bowl but it won’t be easy. All the teams we come up against will be competitive and they have had some close games today,” he added.

If Scotland beat Niue tomorrow morning, they will face the winners of Tonga v Kenya. Niue narrowly lost 26-17 to France today before heavy defeats from Fiji and Canada followed. Tonga lost to South Africa in game one but came back to beat Argentina 21-12 and the USA 19-17. Despite winning two of their pool matches, Argentina pipped Tonga to the cup on points with wins over the USA and a 7-0 victory over South Africa.

SCOTLAND 7s SQUAD FOR WELLINGTON AND LOS ANGELES

Mark Lee * (King’s Own Scottish Borderers) CAPTAIN, David Gray * (Exeter Chiefs), Scott Forrest (Glasgow Warriors and Glasgow Hawks), Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Gunners and Stewart’s Melville FP), Oli Brown * (Boroughmuir), Ciaran Beattie (Border Reivers and Selkirk), Mark Robertson (Melrose), Colin Gregor * (Glasgow Warriors and Watsonians), Rory Lawson * (Edinburgh Gunners), Ali Warnock * (Nottingham), Clark Laidlaw * (Jed-Forest), Nick De Luca * (Edinburgh Gunners and Heriot’s)

* indicates member of the Scottish Institute of Sport

This article was posted on 3-Feb-2006, 14:21 by Hugh Barrow.