Scotland coach Rob Moffat today welcomed the draw for the 2006 Commonwealth Games 7s tournament in Melbourne, Australia.

Scotland have been seeded 7th for the two-day tournament and will compete alongside second seeds and last season’s Rugby World Cup 7s winners, Fiji; IRB circuit regulars Canada; and Zambia in Pool B.

Moffat said today: “It’s a good draw. We are targeting a medal at the Commonwealth Games and to be in with a chance of that we have to reach a semi-final.

“The way the draw works our crossover pool for the quarter-finals will be the one that contains New Zealand, so the way I look at it at this stage is that we’ll have to beat either Fiji or New Zealand, in addition to Canada and Zambia, in order to reach the semi-final. And we know from past experience that there are no easy ties in Commonwealth Games 7s tournaments.

“We are really looking forward to the Commonwealth Games. It will be the pinnacle of our entire season and everything in our preparation is geared towards that.

“On the IRB circuit last season every time we were seeded in the top eight, we finished within the top eight. We were six times in quarter-finals without managing to win one, so we know the progression we want to achieve this year,” he added.

The pools for the Commonwealth Games 7s are:

Pool A – New Zealand, Kenya, Wales and Namibia
Pool B – Fiji, Scotland, Canada and Zambia
Pool C – England, Australia, Cook Islands and Sri-Lanka
Pool D – South Africa, Samoa, Tonga, Uganda

Scotland’s pool matches are scheduled for Thursday 16 March: 10.52am v Zambia; 1.58pm v Canada; 9.06pm v Fiji (all times are local).

note from Ed
Three Hawks Kenny Sinclair,Steven Duffy and Scott Forrest are in the extended Scotland 7s Squad

This article was posted on 13-Oct-2005, 12:39 by Hugh Barrow.