THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS

Commonwealth Games: Stephen Gemmell bows out after Sevens suffer agonising quarter-final exit

Published Date: 13 October 2010
By DAVID FERGUSON
SCOTLAND'S rugby sevens side saw their Commonwealth Games campaign come to an end yesterday as they narrowly missed out on the semi-finals and an opportunity to push for a medal, before being outclassed by Samoa in the Plate final.
The big game for Scotland was the match with the South Africans, the Scots having reached the last eight in the Games for the first time with wins over Guyana and Canada on Monday. Defeat to New Zealand, who maintained their record of never having lost in the Commonwealth Games sevens in yesterday claiming the Delhi title in a thrilling final with Australia, handed Stephen Gemmell's side the meeting with South Africa, and they came within a whisker of landing a semi-final place.

South Africa skipper Paul Delport opened the scoring in the second minute, but Scotland came back with Mike Adamson, the Glasgow Hawks stand-off, finishing a good try and converting at the end of the first half to put Scotland 7-5 up.

Again, South Africa took the initiative in the second half, Ryno Benjamin making the most of an overlap, but with the conversion missed again it left the door open and John Houston, the Edinburgh centre, made a great break and looked to be en route to the match-winning score. However, he was tackled just short and South Africa scrambled to regain possession and then hung on until the final whistle to claim their semi-final spot.

This article was posted on 13-Oct-2010, 07:19 by Hugh Barrow.