Scotland Sevens were stopped short of an inaugural Gold Coast Sevens Bowl trophy this morning by Argentina (14-17) in opening leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
Day one pool losses to England (5-24) and Wales (12-14) and a win over Tonga (14-12) yielded the top seeded, day-two Bowl knockout slot and lined the Scots up with Nuie, as they started out their quest for silverware.
Scotland performed admirably in the quarter and semi finals, putting 36 unanswered points past Nuie before ousting the USA 19-5 in a composed semi-final display.
 
Their efforts meant that Argentina, a regular in last season’s cup competition, were next and, while Scotland continued their early scoring form, three tries in response meant that Andrew Turnbull’s reply in the dying seconds did not come early enough to battle back (14-17).
Scotland 7s head coach, Graham Shiel, said: “"It's good to get the first tournament under our belts in a Series where the calibre of the opponents and the level of competition has stepped up once again.

"In many ways I'm happy with our day two performance as we stepped up our play and imposed ourselves in the knockout rounds.
 
"We're obviously disappointed to lose the Bowl final with a couple of decisions, which were uncharacteristic of how we played this weekend, leaving exposed. However, that's the margins we operate in and we have to cope with that to pick up silverware on this stage."”
The Scots started the day brightly and full of intent, posting five first-half tries – a two minute hat-trick from James Fleming sandwiched between scores from captain Colin Gregor and the increasingly impressive Ross Miller.
The one-way traffic continued after the interval when Miller crossed for the only score of the half to end the game with a comfortable, moral-boosting win (36-0).
The victory put Scotland in a semi-final with USA, who posed a much sterner assessment of the squad, but Scotland repeated their strong start with an early opener from Series debutante Sam Hidlago-Clyne, followed up by Miller’s second of the day.
Miller made it three after a minute of second-half play to put some distance between the sides before USA replacement Colin Hawley crossed for an unconverted score with a minute left on the clock (19-5).
With their tails up Scotland started the final well, Peter Horne using the threat of an overlap to cut back inside to score.
Colin Gregor added the extras before Argentina leveled the try count at nearside corner flag, presenting a challenging conversion, even for the expert Gutierrez Taboada (7-5).
The missed conversion meant that the Scots held a slender lead until an unforced error surrendered possession to the Pumas who took the initiative, scored and converted to lead at half-time (7-12).
The Scots were under pressure in the second-half and, after escaping a scare behind the try line, kicked a penalty to safety.
Unfortunately the resulting lineout was turned over and Manuel Montero repositioned himself at the top of the tournament scoring charts with his sixth score of the weekend (7-17).
With ten points in it the Scots needed and early try but, while they worked tirelessly to cross the whitewash, Andrew Turnbull’s 96th World Series score was in vein, with just seconds left on the clock.
Under the new Series scoring system, the Bowl runners-up position banks seven Series points for the Scots, just one less than that of the winner, while last season they would have left with nothing.
Their positive showings from the weekend, combined with the increased yield in points, means that they go into the second leg of the championship, in Dubai, with promising signs on which to build.
Scotland will face Australia, Wales and Canada in the Dubai Sevens having been drawn against the sides moments before the cup final of the Gold Coast Sevens - establishing a precedent for the remainder of the Series.
Scotland 7s squad: *Scott Riddell, Michael Fedo, James Eddie, Kerr Gossman, Colin Gregor, Peter Horne, Struan Dewar, Adam Ashe, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, James Fleming, *Ross Miller
*sportscotland institute supported players

This article was posted on 26-Nov-2011, 20:01 by Hugh Barrow.