SCOTS QUALIFY FOR HONG KONG CUP


Scotland qualified for their first cup competition of the season today at the IRB Hong Kong Sevens with two wins from three over the first two days of the world famous tournament. Scotland beat Japan 33-7 in the opener yesterday before putting Singapore down with an 82-0 victory.

The final game of the group competition matched Scotland against a strong New Zealand team and the squad were unable to replicate their great performance of the previous match against Singapore, going down 35-0 to the All Blacks.

The two wins were enough for Scotland to qualify for the latter stages as they join the top placed sides from the six pools along with Samoa to make up the eight-team quarter finals tomorrow. Scotland have been drawn against Fiji who took the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens title in Hong Kong last year.

New Zealand came to the Hong Kong Sevens looking to continue their run of good form after scooping Commonwealth Games gold but only narrowly won against Japan this afternoon in the dying minutes (24-19). That was enough to shock this talented side and they came out guns-blazing to show what they can do.

Coach Rob Moffat was disappointed by the performance from Scotland and had hoped the score-line would be closer. He said: “That was a poor performance by us. New Zealand almost lost to Japan but they came out very switched on and put us under a lot of pressure. We didn’t react well to that.”

The occasion seemed too much for the Scots and the crowd struggled to find voice with little possession or try-scoring opportunities for them to shout about.

“It’s a simple game – we didn’t keep the ball long enough and we missed too many tackles,” Moffat added.

It took just over a minute of play for New Zealand to make their mark with a try from D J Forbes, converted by Dwayne Sweeney.

Two more followed in the first half from Nigel Hunt and Tafai Ioasa taking the score to 21-0.

The strength and pace of the Kiwis was unstoppable at times with the Scots going for everything but found themselves being side-stepped or pushed backwards too often to gain control of the match.

Scotland worked very hard to use the ball when they could, with Andrew Turnbull speeding down the line several times but no one could get past Cory Jane who had a solid game and played a major role in New Zealand’s two second-half tries to wrap things up at 35-0.

This left Scotland hoping to qualify for the cup final stage thanks to their high point margin after their earlier record win against Singapore and yesterday’s victory over Japan.

Moffat now has to get the boys’ confidence back and focus on the final day of play. He said: “Every game is different. We have to learn and we have to move on. We’ve got tomorrow and we’re in the cup. We want to play the top teams because that is the best way to learn.”

SCOTLAND 7s: Mark Lee * (King’s Own Scottish Borderers) CAPTAIN, Ross Rennie (Edinburgh Gunners and Stewart’s Melville FP), Colin Gregor * (Glasgow Warriors and Watsonians), Clark Laidlaw * (Jed-Forest), Ali Warnock * (Nottingham), Andrew Turnbull * (Watsonians) and Nick De Luca * (Edinburgh Gunners)
Subs: Oli Brown * (Boroughmuir), Dave Callam * (Edinburgh Gunners), Matt Coupar (Edinburgh Academicals), Scott Forrest (Glasgow Warriors and Glasgow Hawks) and Ciaran Beattie (Border Reivers and Selkirk).

This article was originally posted on 1-Apr-2006, 22:46 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 1-Apr-2006, 22:46.