Scotland scrape into 7s World Cup with Plate win

Published on 23/07/2012 00:45

SCOTLAnd have qualified for the Rugby 7s World Cup but only just after winning the Plate competition in Portugal.

They defeated Italy 22-14 on the Algarve to become one of the five qualifiers from the event alongside Georgia, France, Spain and hosts Portugal.

Scotland had lost 26-14 in the Cup quarter-final to France, which meant that were on the brink of missing out. But a convincing 33-0 plate semi-final victory over Germany set up a final against Italy and the Scots achieved their goal.

The hosts went on to win the Cup with a 7-5 win against Spain.

Stephen Gemmell, Scottish Rugby’s Head of Performance Development, said: “We came here to do a job and that was to qualify a side for next year’s Rugby World Cup 7s in Moscow

“We are disappointed that we lost to Spain and France but, for the players to complete the job in six games, said much for this group.

“We’ll do a thorough debrief as usual now it’s the end of the sevens season but the bottom line is that we have qualified and nobody is going to worry about how that was achieved come next June in Moscow.”

Against France, Michael Fedo and James Fleming scored tries and Captain Gregor landed two conversions but to no avail.

In the win-or-bust Germany game, Scotland led 14-0 at the break and were not troubled in spite of losing Struan Dewar to the sin-bin. The points came from tries by Gregor, Fleming (3) and sub Rory Hughes. Gregor scored three conversions and sub Russell Weir, one.

In the final Scotland again lost Dewar to a yellow card but tries from Fleming (2), Fedo and Colin Shaw with Gregor adding a conversion, always ensured daylight between the teams. Italy struck back with a converted try in each half.

On Friday’s opening day, Scotland had enjoyed pool victories over the Netherlands and Romania before the loss to Spain.