Warriors take sting out of Wasps' attack to lift 'home' title

Published Date: 15 May 2011
By Martin Laing
at Dumbreck
Glasgow Warriors ensured the NCS Glasgow City Sevens trophy remained in its home city with a fine display in eclipsing Wasps at Dumbreck yesterday. To the delight of the noisy and partisan crowd, Warriors crushed the Londoners with a superb display of sevens rugby in the final, running out 48-0 victors.
The damage began early on when Tom Brown bagged the first score, and added a second with a run-in from the halfway line. Scott Newlands grabbed the third touchdown for a commanding lead and then got his second just before the break for a 26-0 interval advantage.

Warriors never looked under any pressure and their dominance continued into the second period when Newlands secured his hat-trick by jinking through the narrowest of gaps to score.

Scott Riddell rubbed further salt into Wasps' wounds when he breached their defence and the ever lively Andrew Turnbull iced the Warriors' cake with a last score right on the final whistle to cement his place as Scotland's top try scorer in sevens rugby.

Warriors eased past Whitecraigs in the first round and then looked slick and quick in disposing of GHA in their quarter-final contest. They had to improve their game against Ospreys before coming up against the other big-name team from south of the Border in the final.

Similarly, London Wasps had put up a fine show beating Howe of Fife and then seeing off a lively Royal Scots team in the quarters. The English side then had to counter the threat from last year's champions, Glasgow Hawks in the semi-final, finally winning 26-22 in an intriguing match that either could have taken. Wasps were always in front but had to remain alert to maintain their advantage over a Hawks outfit that had genuine pace.

It was a fitting end to a splendid afternoon's sport in the sunny though blustery conditions that was enjoyed immensely by the large and vociferous crowd. And it was fitting, too, that the plate final was contested between Howe of Fife and Stirling County, the top two teams in the Legacy Sevens Series league table prior to this event. In the end, Howe edged the tie 17-14 but Stirling conclude the series as Legacy champions thanks to their performances in the other tournaments at County, Boroughmuir and Howe.

This article was posted on 14-May-2011, 23:01 by Hugh Barrow.