All Blacks reign supreme after feast of thrilling rugby

The All Blacks defeated Samoa 31-5 in the final and in doing so clinched the IRB Sevens World Series in this the final tournament of the season.

The Scots, who had performed heroically to defeat South Africa in an invigorating final match on Saturday, fell to Argentina in the quarter-final yesterday, leaving Wales to carry the home nations' challenge. This they did superbly with a thrilling win over tournament favourites Fiji in the last eight.

It was a victory which lifted the crowd, although not quite as much as the hosts' win over the Springboks the pervious day. The attendance of nearly 14,000 on Saturday (more than paid to watch the Test match with Romania last November) was considered good by the Scottish Rugby Union's modest expectations and there was a great deal of satisfaction when a further thousand filtered through the gates yesterday to take part in a colourful rugby jamboree.

Scotland's demise in the quarter-final stage - their fifth consecutive last-eight exit - and subsequent loss to Kenya in the plate semi-finals were downers, but there was a world series at stake and the Scottish crowd showed their appreciation as New Zealand pipped Fiji and Samoa for the world title.

Fiji kept it alive to the last tie by beating plate finalists Kenya, which knocked Samoa out of the running, but New Zealand knew a victory over Samoa in the main cup final would secure their return to the top of sevens rugby and they made no mistake in a thrashing.

The one-sided game was a dampened finale, aided by rain, compared with Saturday night's thrilling conclusion. After a typically slow start the tournament had sparked to life with the final game on the first day. All the children involved in the back pitch 'festival of rugby' were brought trackside for the Scotland v South Africa tie.

The players produced an aggressive, fast-running display and two tries from Ben Cairns and others by Mark Robertson and Colin Gregor proved too much for the pool favourites to claw back.

That made Scotland pool winners for the first time in more than 20 world tournaments but it all came tumbling down yesterday as the Scots, delighted at avoiding New Zealand in the last eight, failed to replicate the form of the previous day and played into the hands of a suffocating Argentine side. The Pumas play hard and hit hard, and after scoring a 35-second try through Gonzalo Camacho, they were able to sit and take Scotland's pounding.

Ramiro del Busto and Francisco Albarracin scored from counter-attacks either side of half-time, killing good periods of Scotland attacks. Colin Gregor strived to give Scotland hope and Mark Robertson did that with a good try four minutes from time, but Del Busto scored again and a late Roddy Grant try provided little consolation.

The Scots then faced Kenya in the plate and simply ran out of steam, letting a 17-5 lead (with tries from Shaw, 2, and Scott Forrest) slide to a 19-17 defeat.

Stephen Gemmell, the Scotland coach, admitted: "It's been a great season, a huge learning curve for the players and it's been an honour for me to coach them, but they have to learn to play for two days.

"We feel massive disappointment at losing the quarter-final to Argentina. The first kick-off didn't go ten, which didn't give us the start and momentum we needed, and the crowd who had been so much behind us were dampened a little bit and the nerves came out in the players.

"But I told the players that that is something they have to learn. These guys have desires to be international rugby players and so are going to have to play in front of 67,500 cheering Scots. The crowd can be a massive factor in the game but you need to bring them in with you, and I thought they actually let the crowd drive the game and force them into doing things we hadn't spoken about.

"I take my hat off to them for pulling their socks up and playing some very good sevens against Kenya, but they tired after three hard, physical games yesterday, with immense courage and skill to win against South Africa. If you give powerful Kenyans any room to run they will run, and that's what happened, although Colin Gregor feels he was pushed when he went for his kick ahead, and I'm not making excuses but those are the little things that are turning points."

He added: "Before this we had 12 guys who hadn't beaten South Africa before and now they have; it was the same in San Diego when we beat Australia. That's invaluable, but the big challenge is turning up and playing on day two."

Sunday's quarter-finals had started with the tournament shock as Fiji, the world sevens series leaders and favourites for the Edinburgh title, succumbed meekly to Wales. They had only to reach the semi-finals to clinch the series for the second time in a row, but the Welsh repeated their quarter-final defeat of Scotland at Twickenham by pipping Waisale Serevi's men 21-14.

The Red Dragon had its fire doused by New Zealand in the semi-finals, however, and Argentina had their final hopes dashed in a second-half comeback from Samoa, leaving the blue-shirted finds of 2007 to present their trademark physical barrier to New Zealand's bid to reclaim the title lost to Fiji last year.

Adam Thomson opened the scoring after nearly three minutes, Samoa's initial surge having been repelled. Tomasi Cama converted but Samoan Fautua Otto made it interesting when he managed to wrestle out of a tackle and bash the ball down in the right-hand corner. Thomson replied and in injury-time Samoa suffered heavily, losing Lolo Lui to the sin-bin for a late tackle and then a third try, to DJ Forbes, the captain, from the resultant penalty.

A tiring Samoa struggled to hold on to possession and the Kiwis cruised to victory with tries from Forbes, Cama and Afeleke Pelenise, one of the stars of the 2007 series, securing both the Ned Haig Cup and the IRB World Sevens Series trophy.

Scorers: New Zealand: Tries: Thomson 2, Forbes 2, Cama, Pelenise. Cons - Cama 2. Samoa: Triy: Otto.

New Zealand: E Cocker, S Yates, A Soakai, DJ Forbes, L Raikabula, T Cama, R Kinikinilau, A Thomson, C Baxter, W Rickards, A Penelise, Z Lawrence.

Samoa: O Treviranus, A Fa'aiuga, S Makaele, M Senio, F Otto, L Lui, J Meafou, M Pesamino, T Iosua, E Salesa, A Tupou.

Referee: W Barnes (England).