Samoa draw pips Scotland of quarter-final place

The 12-12 draw saw the South Sea islanders go through in second place in the group, with a higher points difference than the Scots.

Scotland had lost to Portugal in their first game on Friday.

The Scotland sevens side now move into the Bowl quarter-finals where they were due to take on USA in the early hours of this morning.

Scotland head coach Stephen Gemmell said: “It says a lot about where this competition is at, that we’re absolutely gutted we’ve missed out on a Cup quarter-final when drawing with Samoa.

“I’m very proud of the way the players stood up today after yesterday, going toe-to-toe with some of the best rugby teams and players on the circuit. However, we’re all disappointed because ultimately we didn’t achieve our goal, we didn’t finish off key games and at times the bounce of the ball just didn’t go our way.

“Every match and point is absolutely vital now as we have to come away with the maximum amount of points on offer to move out of 12th place. We will continue to strive for more and improved consistency.”

The Scots opened their second day’s campaign against England. Hurting from their defeat to Portugal, it was a must-win tie and two tries from Mark Robertson on either side of half-time, complemented with two conversions from Colin Gregor, saw them take the victory.

Their second match was always going to be tough against an experienced Samoan side, who came off the back of losing to Portugal, who topped the group. However, the Scots played with confidence.

Two minutes into the game, they turned over a Samoa attack metres from their line. Russell Weir then burst through the defence and made 65 metres of territory. He then offloaded to Michael Fedo who was in support, who also had Gregor on his shoulder. Gregor collected and was in under the posts. He converted his own try and the Scots had the lead.

On the stroke of half-time  Faatoina Autagavaia scored for Samoa, taking the score to 7-5 at the break. Scotland re-took the lead in the second half with a James Johnstone try, but with a minute to go, and Mark Robertson in the sin-bin, Samoa levelled the scores, Sani Niue touching down, with Loio Lui converting.

Elsewhere, defending champions Fiji matched New Zealand in winning all three of their pool games. The All Blacks will face Samoa in the last eight, with Fiji taking on Australia. Canada will line up in the quarters against Wales, while impressive Portugal will face Kenya.