Sevens squad head to South Africa on a high
ALAN LORIMER
SCOTLAND travel to South Africa for the second round of the IRB World Sevens Series in George, South Africa next weekend with their confidence lifted from some good performances at the Emirates Airline Dubai Sevens.

The Scots, fielding a young side, competed well, coming within a score of beating France, who ended up in the final of the plate competition, and taking shield winners, Wales, to extra time.

In the pool stages, the young Scots beat eventual bowl finalists Zimbabwe who had earlier disposed of France. Scotland can look back to the second day with a degree of pride despite losing 33-12 to Portugal in the quarter finals of the bowl, a defeat hugely influenced by a Mike Adamson's yellow card.

That defeat then put Scotland into the fourth-level shield competition and a semi-final against Wales.

Scotland, with tries from stand-off Ruaridh Jackson and scrum-half Murray Bringhurst, were locked at 12-12 at full time, but a Tom James try in the sudden death play-off signalled the end of the road. Individually it was Borders three-quarter Mark Robertson, with clever running, who impressed most.

Overall, Dubai will be remembered for the rarely-experienced torrential rain that all but washed out the prestigious tournament. In the freak conditions it was South Africa who triumphed after staging a remarkable second half comeback to defeat New Zealand 31-12.

This article was posted on 4-Dec-2006, 08:15 by Hugh Barrow.