Day, 23 May 2009
Fiji 7, Scotland 12

Scotland bounced back into contention for a place in the Cup quarter-finals at the Emirates Airline London Sevens with a win over Fiji who are currently placed third in the IRB Sevens World Series Standings.
A delighted Scotland 7s coach, Stephen Gemmell, said: “I’ve said all along that this team is capable of playing top quality sevens and they’ve just shown it there.
“In terms of our performance, it makes a perfect statement about Scottish 7s. We’ve been disappointed all year about how we’ve performed, but we’ve got together a squad this year that at these two tournaments in London and Edinburgh we can be competitive. We’ve shown in our first two games that we can be.
“We’ve just beaten a Fiji team that won in Hong Kong and ran close a Kenya team who were finalists in Adelaide.
“We’re disappointed with the second half against Kenya but the encouraging thing for me was that we dug deep for 14 minutes and with one minutes to go against Fiji, everyone was defending with their hearts.”
For the second time today, Scotland found themselves ahead at the break. An early touchdown from captain Scott Forrest buoyed Scots but they weathered a very turbulent storm in the opening seven minutes.
Although Fiji were soon down to six men due to an off the ball incident during Forrest’s try, the disadvantage in numbers did little to quell their hunger for the whitewash.
Scotland almost doubled their lead moments later when Thom Evans kicked ahead from inside own 22. A secondary chip ahead to help control the bounce of the ball saw Evans knock on despite being clear through for the try.
Half-time score: Fiji 0, Scotland 5
Fiji started the second half brightly and as Evans brought down Pio Tuwai, the Fijian danced in the tackle and gave a sublime one-handed offload behind his back to send Emosi Vucago over the line.
With Fiji two points better off following the successful conversion, Scotland were back in possession.
Andrew Turnbull hugged the touchline and jinked his way through the opposition defence. His offload found Greig Laidlaw who dived over to regain the lead. Gregor converted.
Afterwards, Gemmell added: “We just need to keep our feet on the ground, get our recovery done and build on that result, and just be a little more accurate. It might seem strange an international coach talking about improvements when you’ve just beaten one of the top teams in the world, but that’s what we need to do.
“It can’t just be a flash in the pan. We need to build on that and take it into the next game against the USA.”
Scotland 7s team v Fiji: Scott Forrest (Ayr)* CAPTAIN, Roddy Grant (West of Scotland)*, Jim Thompson (Edinburgh), Allister Hogg (Edinburgh), Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh), Colin Gregor (Glasgow Warriors), Thom Evans (Glasgow Warriors)
Scotland 7s squad to compete at the final two events on the IRB Sevens World Series in London (23 and 24 May) and Edinburgh (30 and 31 May): Scott Forrest (Ayr)* CAPTAIN, Mike Adamson (Glasgow Warriors), Thom Evans (Glasgow Warriors), Roddy Grant (West of Scotland)*, Colin Gregor (Glasgow Warriors), Allister Hogg (Edinburgh), John Houston (Edinburgh), Greig Laidlaw (Edinburgh), Hefin O’Hare (Glasgow Warriors), Colin Shaw (Glasgow Warriors), Jim Thompson (Edinburgh), Andrew Turnbull (Edinburgh)

This article was posted on 23-May-2009, 18:21 by Hugh Barrow.