SCOTS QUALIFY FOR KNOCKOUT STAGES
Posted: 30/Nov/07
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Scotland have qualified for the knockout stages of tomorrow’s IRB World Series 7s tournament in Dubai – the sixth tournament in succession that that they have progressed to the business end of a competition.

Coach Stephen Gemmell hailed the “massive achievement” of his young squad who have already bettered their seeding for the tournament.

On the opening day at the Exiles Stadium, in front of a capacity 35,000 crowd, Scotland accounted for France 17-12 and the Arabian Gulf 27-5. Earlier they had lost to reigning IRB 7s champions New Zealand 5-41.

Qualification for the Cup quarter-finals thus rested on the final pool game of the day, which saw New Zealand maintain their 100% record with a narrow 21-19 success against the French – but it was close.

Gemmell said: “France missed a conversion under the posts and also a late penalty under the posts. If they’d got the penalty they would have gone through instead of us.

“Overall when you consider that we had five newcomers to the IRB circuit and four players aged 18 in our squad then it’s a massive achievement to qualify for the quarter-finals.”

Scotland now face Pool B winners Fiji, conquerors of Argentina, Zimbabwe and Australia today, in tomorrow’s quarter-final, that match kicking off at 8.14 GMT.

In the opener against New Zealand scrum-half Andrew Dymock scored Scotland’s lone try. In game two, against the French, Ruaridh Jackson’s last-gasp try was decisive after earlier tries from James Thompson and Colin Gregor, Gregor converting his own score. In their final outing of the day their tries against the Arabian Gulf were claimed by Jackson, Chris Kinloch, Thompson, Scott Newlands and Stephen McColl, with Gregor converting Kinloch’s score.

Gemmell added: “One advantage of youth is that they have nothing to fear. We’ll give it a real go against Fiji tomorrow.”

Scotland 7s squad (sponsored by Murray) for IRB tournaments in Dubai (30 November and 1 December) and George (7 and 8 December)

Scott Forrest (Ayr)* CAPTAIN, Calum Forrester (GHA)*, Richie Vernon (Glasgow Warriors), Scott Newlands (Edinburgh), Chris Fusaro (Heriot’s)**, Stephen McColl (Dunfermline)*, Colin Gregor (Glasgow Warriors), Chris Kinloch (Edinburgh Accies)*, James Thompson (Heriot’s)*, Andrew Dymock (Dundee HSFP)**, Grant Anderson (Ayr)**, Ruaridh Jackson (Glasgow Hawks)*.

This article was posted on 30-Nov-2007, 20:33 by Hugh Barrow.