Scotland 7s win bowl final
Colin Gregor helped Scotland to two bowl victories
Scotland 7s won their second piece of silverware this season as they forged out a 26-21 win over Tonga in the final of the bowl at the IRB USA Sevens in Los Angeles.
Scotland - including Glasgow\\\'s Colin Gregor and Hawks Scott Forrest - will return home this week with two bowls in their luggage having won that prize at last week\\\'s tournament in Wellington, New Zealand.


SCOTLAND 7s WIN SECOND PIECE OF SILVERWARE
Posted: 13/Feb/06
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Scotland 7s today won their second piece of silverware this season as they forged out a 26-21 win over Tonga in the final of the bowl at the IRB USA Sevens in Los Angeles.

Scotland will return home this week with two bowls in their luggage having won that prize at last week’s tournament in Wellington, New Zealand with an injury time try courtesy of Ross Rennie to beat Canada 10-5 in the final.

Today’s result came as the Scots made amends for three straight losses in the pool round yesterday as Fiji ran out 38-5 winners in game one before Argentina followed up with a 22-5 victory. The day ended on a sour note as relative small timers on the circuit Uruguay clinched a 17-14 win.

The results punted Scotland into the bowl and a quarter-final showdown with Kenya, who finished third in pool A.

Scotland triumphed 21-7 over the African nation before narrowly disposing of Samoa in the semi-final with a 26-21 win.

Scotland 7s’ coach Rob Moffat said: “We played well today after some pretty iffy performances in the pools. We simply made too many mistakes against good sides yesterday but we ground out three solid matches today to win the bowl.

“We have played some very good rugby at times but I think we were missing some real pace out wide - we had to work very hard for the tries we scored. Samoa are a great side and they were unlucky not to qualify for the cup but we came from behind to win today.

“We were 14-0 down in the final against Tonga but the boys stuck in hard and we came back to win it in injury time with a Nick De Luca try. We have seen some excellent rugby from the players in the squad and I think they deserved to win the bowl again.

“It’s not easy to win the bowl. We’ve had some tough draws from these two tournaments and our aim is always to qualify for the cup. At times we made too many errors but we came back and won – I’m very pleased with that,” he added.

The results today will give Moffat and his men a confidence boost as all minds now focus on next month’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia. Scotland have set their sights on a medal at the Games but Fiji, Canada and Zambia stand in their way in the pool stages alone.

SCOTLAND 7s v TONGA (BOWL FINAL)
Mark Lee * (King’s Own Scottish Borderers) CAPTAIN, David Gray * (Exeter Chiefs), Oli Brown * (Boroughmuir), Clark Laidlaw * (Jed-Forest), Colin Gregor * (Glasgow Warriors and Watsonians), Ali Warnock * (Nottingham), Nick De Luca * (Edinburgh Gunners and Heriot’s)
Substitutes: (not used) Scott Forrest (Glasgow Warriors and Glasgow Hawks), Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Gunners and Stewart’s Melville FP), Ciaran Beattie (Border Reivers and Selkirk), Mark Robertson (Melrose), Cameron Johnston (Newcastle Falcons),

This article was originally posted on 13-Feb-2006, 13:21 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 13-Feb-2006, 14:15.