THE HERALD REPORTS
Scotland’s historic win over Fiji

KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer June 02 2008
Scotland's first ever win over Fiji made the second staging of Emirates Airlines Edinburgh International Sevens an occasion to remember at Murrayfield yesterday.

It was the 16th time the nation which invented the sport had met the one which has adopted it as its own, and it was all the more special that the breakthrough win took place in the Scottish capital.

Put in broader context, the victory means that the only leading nation Scotland has never beaten at both sevens or XVs is New Zealand, who had swept them aside in the quarter-final of the main competition on their way to defending the title won in last year's inaugural event.


The way the Kiwis did so affirmed just why they had so easily retained their overall IRB Sevens World Series title even before this season's final event got under way.

However, it was Scotland's performance that lifted the occasion above the ordinary and the delighted response of Steve Gemmell, their coach, was that of a man vindicated for having promised that the Murrayfield crowd would be pleasantly surprised by what they witnessed from the home team.

"That was probably our best performance across a whole tournament," he said afterwards.

"We're still massively disappointed at losing the Plate final to South Africa, but when we saw our draw for this weekend, our target was to get out of our pool, then to beat one of the top sides. We've done that and our players have just stood toe-to-toe with the best teams in the world."

What made it all the more special was the way the players pushed themselves to their limits and way beyond in fighting until within 57 seconds of the end of the second half of sudden-death extra time to win the Plate semi-final.

The atmosphere may have been dampened slightly by steady, at times heavy, rain that arrived soon after mid-day, but the Scots lifted it in a match where they were never headed, albeit they threatened, as so often before, to throw away the chance to defeat one of the leading nations.

Dominating possession, just as they had against the Fijians before losing dramatically to them in the Twickenham quarter-final a week earlier, the Scots opened the scoring through Mike Adamson midway through the first half, but that score was cancelled out by Iliava Satala's score before the interval.

They then reclaimed the advantage when Andrew Turnbull showed the best of his pace and footwork to slice his way through and he and his team-mates continued to enjoy the better of the game as they looked to wind down the clock.

However, having shown considerable guile in doing so, they contrived, deep in the Fijian 22, to lose the ball once again five seconds before the full-time buzzer went and 10 seconds after it had gone Marika Vunibaka scored the equalising try.

In many ways the build-up to that score demonstrated the difference between the Scots and the physically more imposing teams. Where the hosts had to play their way through many phases of cleverly crafted rugby to claim their scores, such opponents have the strike-running capacity to bulldoze rucks or blast tacklers aside then score with relative ease. Indeed, that could not have been more obvious in the way New Zealand had scored six tries from seven possessions in the course of their win over the Scots.

With Scotland kicking off, the sense was that the Fijians would now make use of their reprieve and deliver the coup de grace. Yet an extraordinary Scottish effort was summed up by James Thompson's astonishing cover tackle on the strong-running Setefano Cakau in injury time at the end of the first five minutes of sudden-death extra time.

When late in the second period Mike Adamson was hauled into touch as he desperately strove to get to the line, it again looked like the big opportunity may have gone. Yet determined effort kept the Fijians pinned in their own 22 and when they conceded a penalty it was quickly shifted from left flank to right where a jubilant Ben Addison found himself with enough room to get over.

After such an exhausting battle it was perhaps inevitable that the Scots could not lift themselves again when, for a second successive day, they found themselves up against the world's second best side, South Africa, in the Plate final.

However, having played only sides ranked above them - New Zealand (1), South Africa (2), Fiji (3), Argentina (5) and Australia (8) - in the course of six matches across the two days, losing only to the world's top two, their overall performance fully justified their coach's belief that significant progress has been made during his two years in charge.

Whether they will ever be able to challenge the New Zealanders, who pretty much cruised to this latest title, remains to be seen, but no-one else is now treating teams from the home of sevens with anything other than full respect.

This article was posted on 2-Jun-2008, 07:10 by Hugh Barrow.