SCOTLAND TO FACE ENGLAND IN HONG KONG QUARTERS
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Date Posted: 19-Mar-05

Scotland have been drawn against England in the quarter-finals of the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens 2005 in Hong Kong, having come runners up in pool A.

The two sides met just last month at the New Zealand Sevens in Wellington. That day Scotland came out on top, winning 19-17 with an injury time try from stand-off Clark Laidlaw which he converted himself for victory.

England escaped a possible knock out of the Cup in Hong Kong today following their loss to France last night but they proved just too strong for Samoa in the final pool match, winning 12-7 to head-up group B.

The forthcoming tie will be the third encounter between Scotland and the Auld Enemy across different tiers of the sport at national representative level this weekend. Only one out of the three have been played at this moment in time and Scotland are leading as last night the under-21s beat their English counterparts 19-17 at Franklin’s Gardens, home of Northampton Saints.

Later tonight Scotland face England in the final match of the 2005 RBS 6 Nations Championship at Twickenham in London, before the encounter is played out in the short version of the game in the Hong Kong Stadium tomorrow for a place in the IRB Rugby World Cup Sevens semi-final.

In that competition, Scotland won four of their five matches in the pool stages, scoring over 100 points, with a comfortable 33-14 triumph over Ireland, adding to a 36-14 victory over the USA and a 33-15 win over Korea yesterday. Today they beat Tonga 12-5 before going down 48-0 to tournament favourites New Zealand.

The All Blacks claimed seven tries and demonstrated why they are seeded the number one team in the world and in line to take the IRB Sevens series title this year.

In that game, Rudi Wulf scored a hat-trick of tries with additional touchdowns coming from Orene Ai’I, Amasio Valence, Liam Messam, Tafi Ioasa and replacement George Naoup. Ai’I added four conversions.

SCOTLAND: David Gray (Gala) CAPTAIN, Oli Brown (Boroughmuir), Alasdair Strokosch (Edinburgh Rugby), Kenny Sinclair (Glasgow Hawks), Colin Gregor (Watsonians), Calum MacRae (The Borders), Andrew Turnbull (The Borders)
Substitutes: Mark Lee (The Army), Roland Reid (London Irish), Jamie Blackwood (Watsonians) (all used), Kelly Brown (The Borders), Clark Laidlaw (Jed-Forest)

This article was posted on 19-Mar-2005, 15:05 by Hugh Barrow.